


Eros

by calculatingthestars, kingoriginal



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: First Time, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Parabatai sex, a bit of Climon if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-07 09:20:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 41,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16851394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calculatingthestars/pseuds/calculatingthestars, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingoriginal/pseuds/kingoriginal
Summary: Season 1 compliant up until the end of episode S01E13, with one exception: Alec goes with Jace. Aboard the Morning Star they face the hardships of Valentine’s insanity together and his most derranged plan yet: to change their parabatai bond through the forbidden love of Eros.





	1. Eros

**Author's Note:**

> Hello folks! Some of you might be familiar with this work from tumblr, but for those who are not: this was originally written as a novella style roleplay with two narrative points of view, Alec (dnteverdoubtme) and Jace (calculatingthestars/ourheartsbeatas1), the line breaks will mark the shift on character focus.

_Alec, I mean it._ He did, and for a moment Alec listened and stood back. He would have remained still, but their eyes met on top of all the chaos around them and Alec saw it: the pain in Jace’s eyes, the fear… _I have to do this,_ Jace’s look screamed, and Alec knew his answer even if he didn’t say it out loud.  ** _You don't have to do it alone._**

He stood back, but only for a moment. When Clary rushed for the glowing portal Alec was right there to stop her, his whole body pushing her smaller frame out of the way and towards Isabelle and Simon instead. _Take care of her,_ he urged his sister, barely seeing her terse nod as he turned his back on the trio and took of running. The portal was almost gone by the time he crossed it, Jace and nothing else on his mind.

The relief of finding himself on the other side of that portal and standing before Jace was as sweet as it was short-lived, gone in face of the smile Valentine bestowed upon him. Out of every reaction Alec could have imagined wonder and happiness hadn’t even been considered and yet there they were. _It was only the begining._

* * *

 “ _I don’t think I can go through with this._ ”

Those were the first words Jace had uttered for the better part of an hour. He was sitting at the foot of his bunk, staring at the bare wall in front of him. The paint was peeling, a curl of white revealing rusted metal underneath. He couldn’t bring himself to look up, couldn’t bring himself to meet Alec’s eyes.

There was a hard lump in his throat that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times he swallowed, and part of him wanted to get up and _try_ , try to fight their way past the men keeping them locked within and up to the deck swarming with shadowhunters, fresh-made and old. Even if it was futile, even if he _died_ –

If he died, Jace would be secure in the knowledge that at least he’d retain some part of him that was still _himself_.

They’ve been on the Morning Star for over a month now, and every day it was a little bit _worse_. Helping haul bodies of fallen mundanes off the deck and tipping them into the sea had seemed so horrifying on the day they’d first arrived, but looking back, it seemed almost like a _blessing._

 _At least they were already dead._ Jace closed his eyes and tried not to think about what he’s had to do _,_ tried not to think about the lives he’s had to take on his father’s _orders_.

The first one had almost been self-defense, cutting his teeth on the first of many solo missions and it had been kill or be killed. _The ones after that_ … mercy killings at _best_ , executions at _worst_.

 _The last time Valentine had sent him out, he hadn’t wanted to come back_. It had been a warlock that time– a _strong_ one– and Jace had almost wanted her to _win_. But his training had kicked in and he’d fought tooth and nail to get the job done, and when at last he stood over her body, his arm broken and bleeding from a half dozen wounds, all he’d wanted to do was cut his own throat.

 _But he couldn’t_. He couldn’t because Valentine had his parabatai, and he’d made it clear to his son in no uncertain terms what he would _do_ to Alec if Jace failed or _ran._

And so Jace came back, _again and again and again_. Like a trained dog with his tail tucked between his legs, his only respite being the fact that Alec was there, that he was _alive_ , and though he could never quite bring himself to tell his parabatai exactly what his father’s _‘training sessions’_ entailed, his presence was enough to keep him going.

Shades of grey could only take one so far, after all, and Jace was drowning in the black by now, his soul so stained that he needed, _clung to_ Alec like a life preserver.

But his father had seen this and used this, because his father saw _everything_. And now he was determined to take it _away_.

 _“If we fight–”_ Jace took a breath, finally raising his chin so he could seek his parabatai’s gaze. “If we manage to make it topside, we might be able to steal a life raft.” It would be open water from there, but only Valentine had the key to the portal room, deep within the bowels of the ship. “Maybe we’re near land. Maybe we might even dock soon.”

* * *

 One month aboard the Morning Star had made things a bit clearer and Alec almost felt like he understood now. Valentine couldn’t care less about him, his days being spent in lockdown at a small room with a metal framed bed and no windows, there was no torture, no dingy dungeon, nothing, because Valentine didn’t rally care about Alec Lightwood. Jace cared, however, he cared and that was the only use Valentine saw to him.

Alec’s value to the Circle was that of a reward. He was what Jace got for every one of his successful _training sessions_ , tasked with redrawing his parabatai’s runes and granted to him like a shinny bauble whenever he did well.

_He didn’t mind it all that much, not as long as he got to see Jace._

No matter how dreary their situation was Alec could only imagine what it would be like if Jace were there on his own. It was hard enough as it was, each outing leaving him more strained and making it all the harder for Alec to pick up the pieces. _It was killing him._

Jace clung a little harder each time, his hold almost bruising on the back of Alec’s neck and his breathing shaken as he gasped for air, and Alec assured him each time that it would be okay. _We will find a way_ , he’d tell his friend, _It will be over soon_. But he couldn’t really know so and with thirty days down the line it felt a little harder to believe himself every time he said it.  

Still Alec could have done it. He’d picked up the pieces Valentine had left behind once and he was confident he could do it again- If only he didn’t became important for _something else_ in the eyes of a madman.

The first time Jace told him Alec had bristled, _“He can’t be serious.”_ But he was. Valentine’s ultimate quest for Jace was to turn his son into a weapon, to give him power, and his newest plan to do so counted on their connection. The love of Eros was forbidden for parabatai because it perverted their bond, made them into what they were never supposed to be, and Valentine wanted it for Jace.

Alec couldn’t help but to feel like it was his fault. Somehow, at some point, Valentine must have seen it in him, how wrong he was, and now he wanted to push his parabatai down that same path on the sheer hope that it would make him stronger. He saw how broken Jace was at the very idea, how terrified, and his heart squeezed in his chest at the same time his hand reached for the blonde’s shoulder.

“We can’t fight, not yet,” Alec spoke with a sigh, eyes darting towards the glinting red light of a surveillance camera in the corner of his room. “They will know, Jace.”

There was no way they would make it to the main deck, and even if they did- Even if they got a lifeboat and made it to sea they would never get away from a ship as large as the Morning Star in time, would never make it out of shot range before at least one of them were struck.

“Whatever he said to you, whatever Valentine is threatening me with,” Alec shuddered at the thought, but it didn’t translate into his sure grip. “I can take it, Jace.” He reassured his friend.

“You don’t have to do this.”

* * *

  _Don’t I?_ Jace thought, and he turned his chin back to the wall, closing his eyes. 

The warlock kill yesterday had been clean and after he’d made his report– battered and bruised as he was– his father had called him _back_. It had almost been an afterthought, with Valentine only half-turned towards Jace as he bent over a glowing monitor.

 _“Oh, and Jonathan?”_  he’d said, raising a brow. _“What is your status report regarding your parabatai bond?”_

Jace had swallowed hard, cradling his broken arm to his chest. He hadn’t backed away, however, hadn’t dared to look like he was trying to _flee_  the conversation. “ _Father, I don’t– It’s not like that between us_ ,” Jace had said, stammering. “He’s like my brother, I _can’t_. And it’s– it’s just a _myth_ , isn’t it? We don’t know that it’s going to do anything if we, if I– You  _can’t_ know. No one has ever–”

“ _You don’t have the capacity for_ theories _, son_ ,” Valentine had cut in, and there had been a pregnant pause as he’d straightened. By the time he’d spoken _again_ , sweat had broken out across Jace’s brow and the menace in his father’s tone had been all too  _clear_. 

“Allow me to put this in a way that I _know_  you’ll understand,” he’d said. “ _ **Get it done**_ , or I’ll have your parabatai held down and I’ll let the _crew_ take turns with him. And I’ll make you _watch_.”

He’d given him a _day_ , and the day was almost up. Jace had asked for Alec to be brought to his room an hour ago and had spent most of that hour sitting on his bed and staring at the wall, sick with the thought that this was his life, _their_  life, and it was all _his fault_.

Because Jace should’ve killed Valentine when he’d had the chance. If he hadn’t been so weak, if he hadn’t been such a _coward_ … His father was a _monster._ He’d known it then and he knew it now, but now was far, far too _late_.

Alec was waiting for an answer and Jace took a breath, getting to his feet. “He threatened to kill you,” he said, and the lie came out far more smoothly than the truth ever would have. “You know he would. You know what he’s capable of. And if we can’t _fight_ , if we can’t _escape_ …”

Jace swallowed, shaking his head. They didn’t have a _choice;_  it was this or perish during an escape attempt, because the _real_ alternative wasn’t an alternative at all (it would never be, because Jace would die a thousand times over before he let Valentine put Alec through that). And as much as Jace would have preferred to die while trying to _escape_ , he would never sacrifice his parabatai in a mission doomed to fail.

Hesitantly, he moved towards Alec, reaching out to put his hands on his shoulders. Alec had been his life support for as long as they’d been here; they’d touched far more intimately than _this_ , what with the two feet of space that still stood between their bodies. But it felt different now, as if Valentine had tainted even _this_ – precious as it was to Jace– and his hands felt clumsy and awkward.

Regardless, he _tried anyway_ , searching for some semblance of normalcy between them, looking up into Alec’s eyes and begging him for whatever forgiveness he could dredge up. 

And then he reached up and kissed him.

* * *

  _Death_. Alec hadn’t considered that was the alternative before. It was his mistake and his alone, underestimating Valentine even after everything the man had done. He thought the advantage of holding his well being over Jace’s head was something to good to pass on, but apparently Valentine wasn’t above killing him in order to get what he wanted.

It was the ultimate threat, was it not? Making Jace chose between doing the unspeakable and his parabatai’s life.

From the moment he stepped through that portal Alec knew he was putting his life at risk; as shadowhunters everything they did carried along with it the threat of death. Alec was ready to take it, had always had been for _whither thou goest, I will go_. He simply hadn’t thought it would be like this.

 _You know he would…_ Jace sounded certain, so sure of it he made it sound like a done deal, final, and Alec- Alec hadn’t thought about it before but faced with it he had no doubts. _I don’t think I can go through with this_ , Jace had said, and Alec would never force him to.

 _I can take it,_ Alec thought in silence, cementing the decision a little further within his mind. If death was what it took he could do it, he could die. It was the easiest thing Shadowhunters had to do in their whole lives.

In front of him Jace looked stricken, shaken, that wet look in his eyes he got whenever emotions got the best of him and that made Alec’s heart constrict within his chest.

“It’s okay,” he assured his parabatai as he came closer, hands reaching for Alec’s shoulders in a returned embrace.

Alec moved into it, as he so rarely did, willing himself to wrap his arms around Jace and let the both of them have this moment. _It’s okay_ , Alec told himself once more, hazel eyes meeting Jace’s mismatched saddened ones with a grimace that tried to translate their complicated goodbye into a single look.

_He wasn’t expecting the kiss._

 Jace’s grip tightened on the back of Alec’s neck as it often did, only this time his parabatai used the leverage of his height to pull himself upwards, surging forward and clashing their lips together.

He kissed exactly how his soul felt: intense and bright hot, like the very essence of his being. His mouth demanded passage, purchase, so insistent Alec caved for a single second parting his lips into a surprised gasp that nearly turned into a pained whimper. It was everything he’d ever thought he wanted, but not like this.

Alec’s hands slid up to Jace’s shoulders, tightening their grip and pulling him back and down enough that he could face him. His own look was wide and stricken, lips still parted in surprise and shock.

“We don’t have to do this, Jace,” Alec spoke with as much breath as his shaken self could gather, “Whatever happens, I can take it. **I mean it**.”

* * *

 For a moment, it almost felt as if Alec was _responding_ to the _kiss_ , and one of Jace’s hands even reached up to cradle his jaw. His parabatai’s mouth was soft and his stubble scraped against Jace’s chin, and his heart beat a staccato rhythm in his chest.

They broke apart when Alec’s grip on his shoulders turned into a _push_ , Jace’s eyes flying open as he met his parabatai’s stricken gaze.

_Whatever happens, I can take it. **I mean it**._

_No_ , you don’t, Jace thought, and the lump in his throat was back with a vengeance, his hand sliding from Alec’s face to his chest, briefly fisting in the fabric of his shirt before falling back to his side.

All he could think about was his father’s _real threat_ , his stomach roiling with fear. He couldn’t tell Alec. He _couldn’t_. Because his parabatai could stare death in the eye without flinching but _that_? It would _break_ him, and Jace would never be able to bear it. Even if they tried to fight their way out, as he’d initially _hoped_ , the odds of being killed or recaptured was too high, and Jace realized that his father would give them no second chances. The consequences of trying to escape would surely be the same as outright defying him, and if that happened… if that _happened_ , Jace was back to  _square one_.

No matter how hard he tried to think of a way around this, he _couldn’t_. His father had always been so good at manipulating him, at teaching him his very best  _lessons_ , and Jace almost wanted to _laugh_ – albeit low-pitched and hysterically– because the shreds he had left of himself were barely worth this  _argument._

 _No,_ this was the path of least resistance, the path that would cause Alec the least _damage_. Never mind the cost to his own soul, _what little there was left, what little he still had_ , at least Jace could be secure in the knowledge that _he_ would be careful with Alec.

 _I’m a little better, aren’t I?_ he thought desperately, willing himself not to _shake_.  _I’m a little better than them?_

Jace’s hand twitched, the movement jerky and stilted, as he reached up to cover the hand still resting lightly on his shoulder. “I won’t _force_ you to be with me,” he said finally. “But you have to know that I _can’t_ lose you. _I can’t_.”

He couldn’t control the minute tremble in his fingers as he interlaced his hand with Alec’s, hating that it was his father’s voice that he could hear in his head, filling his mind with _poison_. 

He was a puppet with invisible strings– he’d killed whomever Valentine had told him to kill, and now, apparently, he’d fuck whomever Valentine told him to fuck. He wasn’t a shadowhunter, he was barely even a _person…_  He was a weapon, _just that_ , and _oh_ , how he wished he could be as numb as one, too.

“I know I’m not–” And he choked on the warlock’s _name_ , unable to get it out. “But you can– you can think of _him_ , when we–”

That was as far as Jace could get; his face had drained of all color and he was holding Alec’s hand as if his life depended on it ( _maybe it did_ ), his eyes locked onto his.

* * *

 There was the slightest shake to Jace’s head -  _denial_  - his hand clutching at the fabric of Alec’s worn shirt for a heavy moment before falling back to his side in temporary defeat. The darkness around him was so heavy Alec could nearly see it, physical and palpable, weighting on his parabatai’s shoulders with a vengeance. Their bond was a warrior’s bond and, right then, Jace’s pain was so overwhelming Alec could sense it like the ghost of an open wound. 

He was ready to die, they were always ready to die, but if Jace wasn’t ready to let him go- _If Jace felt like he couldn’t lose him_ , Alec wouldn’t be the one to make him. 

It was as complicated as it was simple. Jace’s will translating into action even at the cost of Alec himself, at the cost of _them_. The price didn’t really matter, it couldn’t matter. Alec had denied Jace once, at the gates of the City of Bones. He had looked up at his parabatai’s glistening eyes, heard the plead in his voice and told him _**NO**_. It was the hardest thing Alec had ever done and he couldn’t- Wouldn’t do it again. 

Jace’s hand reached for his and Alec hesitated, a pregnant pause hanging between them as he felt his parabatai’s trembling fingers reaching for his own. He caved, as he always did, spreading his fingers so Jace’s could be interlaced in between, tightening his grip in order to stop the shaking.

The fact Jace assumed he could force him, that being himself was any part of the reason why Alec didn’t want this, left a lump in his throat that made it hard to swallow or speak. It couldn’t be further from the truth, the exact opposite in fact. Alec wanted it _too much_ , so much he already _loved_ \- Loved his parabatai in the very forbidden way Valentine was pushing them into, and the mere thought of Jace being forced to abide to that made him sick. 

Still the idea that he could think of anyone else somehow felt even worse.

“It’s not that,” he croaked, voice hoarse and broken while his fingers tightened a tad more around Jace’s. 

How could he put it into words? Jace knew he had feelings for him, Alec was sure of that, but how could he explain that he would rather die than see disgust in his parabatai’s face? That corrupting their bond was the scariest thing Alec could possibly think of even when it meant getting something he had always wanted? At least right now he had Jace in some way- any way… If they went through with it he could end with ** _nothing_**.

But Jace needed him, and Alec’s fears were small and meaningless compared to the strong push he felt to attend to him. 

“If you want it,” Alec forced himself to look down at Jace’s eyes, swallowing around the lump in his throat to continue speaking. “If you’re really sure… I wouldn’t need to think of anyone else.”  

It was the truth, that and his biggest shame, wrapped into a single confession.

* * *

_I don’t need to think of anyone else._

It took a moment for Jace to understand what Alec was saying, but when he did, his eyes widened ever so slightly. “You… _Even now?_ ” he couldn’t help but ask, feeling faint at the knowledge. “ _But at the wedding, you–_ ” Humiliated someone you liked enough to _marry_ , went against our parents publicly… all for _him_.

They hadn’t talked about Magnus after what had happened at his wedding, but Jace had been _happy_ for his parabatai. Happy that he’d found someone who very clearly liked him back, happy that he’d stood up to their parents and been proud and unafraid of who he was.

No one had been more surprised than Jace when he’d found Alec by his side after he’d gone through the portal; he’d seen him standing with Magnus and assumed he’d stay _put_. It was his _sister_ that he’d been worried about– fiery, impulsive Clary– but he’d never dreamed that his parabatai would come after him.

It was hard to believe that Alec still felt that way about Jace after what he was going through aboard the Morning Star– _surely_ , Jace had thought, some _part of him had to blame him for what was happening?_  

But he could see that there was no trace of subterfuge in his parabatai’s eyes. He was telling the truth, Jace knew it in his _gut_ , and he wanted so very, very badly to spirit them away from this horrible place. 

“I want to be worthy of your love,” he said, and he reached up to curl his fingers against the nape of Alec’s neck. The gesture was _familiar_ , calling to memory less complicated times, and it only made him _ache_ all the more. “I want to be worth how much you’ve carried me.“ 

He could feel Valentine pressing against his _heart_ , his _lungs_ , siphoning the blood from his veins and replacing it with _tar_. He didn’t want his father to use him to hurt his parabatai– not him, _not him_ – and Jace’s hands were soaked in blood but maybe… _maybe he could still be gentle, too._

This time, when he kissed Alec, it was _different_. It was soft, fitted, a press of lips against his mouth as Jace rose on his toes so that he could _reach_. He closed his eyes and thought of being somewhere else– back in his room at the Institute or perhaps even that silly bar that Isabelle had rented for Alec’s bachelor party. The handful of times that had still felt normal before he’d met Clary and his world had turned upside down, and part of Jace wondered what it would’ve been like if he hadn’t turned around, hadn’t stopped to talk to the pretty girl with the red hair.

There was only Alec now; just him, _still_ him, after a decade of friendship and more near misses than Jace would care to admit, he was still by his side. He wasn’t worthy of his love, not by a long shot, but at least he could make sure that they survived until he _was_.

When Jace pulled away, his gaze was uncertain, fingers still curled against Alec’s neck. There were no more than a few inches still between them, just far enough so he could meet his eyes.

“ _…was that okay?_ ”

* * *

_Even now?_ **Always**.

Alec didn’t think there was a single inch of him capable of not loving Jace. It was part of who he was, so ingrained into his being he couldn’t possibly exist without it, a compromised portion of his very soul. _No wonder Valentine had been able to see it…_

Still Jace seemed so surprised about it, hung up on Alec’s failed wedding and the things he had done then. They never discussed it, never brought it up, but Alec could only wonder what it must have looked like to Jace as he defied their mother and half the dignitaries of the Clave as well with a single _kiss_.

It hadn’t been about Magnus, or Jace, and Alec didn’t know if he would be able to explain even if he tried, but it was about _him_. For so long he had lived for everyone but himself, for so long he had lived a **_LIE_** , and getting married then would only have cemented it. Magnus was wrong in thinking he didn’t know love, but he was right in saying he would be miserable. 

Seeing the warlock at the wedding showed him that. It showed Alec all the possibilities he would be forever giving up on, the very speeding up in his heart for the friend standing next to him at the altar. He couldn’t breathe down, couldn’t _think_ , and he couldn’t go on either. Kissing Jace wasn’t a possibility, not then, but kissing Magnus was and it tasted of freedom once he did. Had Alec known Jace would end up kissing him the way he did today he might have kissed him at his wedding after all. It wouldn’t have tasted as bitter then. 

“It wasn’t like that- ” he explained poorly, their gazes locked into each other. It didn’t really matter, not to Jace, not now, but Alec still felt compelled to say it. 

He wasn’t ready for what Jace said next, not expecting the quiet words that felt like a punch in the gut as they came. _I want to be worthy of your love_. Alec’s stomach twisted painfully as Jace reached for his neck in a parody of how they used to hug one another. The wish was heartfelt, honest, and all the worse for it. _Not like this_.

It wasn’t them, it wasn’t Jace right then - it was what Alec told himself - it was their relationship turned and twisted by Valentine’s vileness. He thought of it and _he knew,_ but his hands still tightened shamefully on Jace’s shoulder’s as his parabatai leaned forward and Alec didn’t back up as he kissed him again.

This time it was different, _softer_ , not rushed by the push of desperation but tinged by the pain of inevitability. Alec felt himself trembling, swallowing dryly as his throat burned with shame. It was forbidden, tainted, wrong, and enough for him to hate himself because it was still Jace and he still liked it. 

Around them the room vanished for a second, the oppressing red light of the camera fading into darkness as Alec allowed his eyes to fall closed and his breath to leave him in a pained gasp that echoed into Jace’s lips. Soft and sweet, unlike everything he’d ever wished or was worthy of. A mockery of his very dreams to have Jace like this, so bitter, and still all he would ever have. 

Anguish swelled in Alec’s chest as Jace pulled away, the hesitancy in his parabatai’s gaze only adding up to the feeling. They had to do this, _somehow_ , they had to- Jace was _trying_ and Alec was blinking the sudden moisture out of his eyes, pushing down his feelings with a vengeance as they boiled up the moment Jace asked if it was okay.

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell Jace it was okay because it was not, but he had to do something and so he ignored the burning clouding of his vision, sliding his hands to the lapels of Jace’s leather jacket and tightening his grip there. For a second Alec was reminded again of the wedding, of his first kiss, the very next he had his eyes closed, pulling Jace to him and kissing him the only way he knew how.

The surety of the gesture was tinged by a wisp of desperation, the only moment Alec allowed himself to the mourning of his love. Up until then it had been something good, painful and hopeless, but it had been his and his alone. He wasn’t sure if could survive the way Jace was bound to look at him after this.

His parabatai had always been worthy. 

 _It was he who never would be so_. 

* * *

There was a moment of silence after Jace pulled back, his mismatched eyes searching Alec’s for some semblance of _permission_. It didn’t come in the form of _words_ but it came nonetheless, with his parabatai’s hands sliding into his collar and pulling him up into another, harder kiss.

The gasp that came from him was involuntary, his fingers tightening against the nape of Alec’s neck as his mouth followed the slant of his lips. There was nothing tentative in the way that his parabatai kissed him, as desperate as it seemed to be, and Jace returned it as best as he could, closing his eyes and trying to put everything else that was happening out of his mind.

Jace was _trying_ and it seemed that Alec was not averse to him as he’d originally thought, but still it felt _wrong_. He could feel the sadness permeating Alec as much as he could feel his own _guilt_ , and for the life of him, he couldn’t understand _why_. Anger at the situation, at being forced into doing _this_ , he could understand and relate to. But _sadness_?

The kiss ended when the need to _breathe_  became paramount, with Jace’s eyes fluttering open to see the telltale track of moisture against his parabatai’s cheek. “ _Alec…_ ”

His hand moved to cradle his jaw, gently swiping at the trail with his thumb. “It’s okay,” he said. If Alec still loved him, still thought of Jace in _that_ way despite whatever was going on with Magnus, then perhaps… 

“Whatever it is… _it’s okay_.”

His bunk was low to the ground and Jace took Alec’s hand and led him to it, sitting him down as he stepped between the V of his legs. He wished he could say what he wanted to say– _if you want to stop, we’ll stop_ – but the lie was sour and he couldn’t get it past his teeth.

“We’ll go slow,” he said instead, looking down at Alec as his hand rested heavily on his shoulder. It was easier to focus on him because it allowed Jace to shove down his thoughts about Valentine, to _compartmentalize_ , and he could almost forget that they were aboard the Morning Star in spite of the groan of metal and the crash of waves outside his window.

 ** _Get it done_** , his father had said, but perhaps the _way_ things happened mattered as much as the fact that they happened at all, and in this, at least, Jace had some measure of _control_.

He took a breath, hesitating only slightly before he took a knee before his parabatai, the position bringing him back to eye level with Alec. “I love you,” he said, and it was easy to say because it was _true_. “The rest of it–” He shrugged, the movement small and somewhat helpless. “It won’t change anything between us if we don’t _let_ it.”

It was as much an assurance to _himself_ as it was to Alec. Jace had never been with a man before and would never even have considered this if it wasn’t _him_ , but sex was sex, and love was love, and to Jace, at least, going through with the actual act was the _least_ of what was weighing on him.

There was a beat before he reached for the hem of Alec’s shirt, his gaze questioning as he tugged at the thin fabric, intending to help him pull it off. 

* * *

 Through the bond their strong emotions fed one another in a vicious cycle, Jace’s guilt fueling Alec’s anguish which, in turn, made his parabatai feel all the worse. He didn’t realize some of it had escaped him in the form of a single tear up until the moment Jace was reaching for his face and drying it with his thumb, the touch so gentle it made Alec want to cry all the more.

 _It wasn’t okay_ , but the moment he had allowed himself in which to break was over and, with a shaky breath, Alec pulled himself together. He reached for Jace’s hand where it cradled his jaw, long fingers molding themselves to the shape of his wrist and feeling the strong and sure pulse underneath. _Carry me,_ Alec thought, willing his own heart to beat in tandem with Jace’s like it seamlessly did in battle. 

After that when Jace guided him Alec went with it, sitting down on the low bed and barely registering the thin mattress or the general harshness of it as he looked up at his parabatai. _We’ll go slow_. Alec nodded, it was all they could do by now. 

Instead of thinking he focused on the simpler, familiar things. Jace’s burning grip on his shoulder, the matching of their frantic heartbeats and the way in which their breathing fell in sync. Like this, Alec could almost forget where he was and what was about to happen, could almost convince himself this was just another dream and not an actual nightmare.

Their eyes met as Jace knelt before him and, not for the first time, Alec lost himself in his gaze, blue and brown and so sure of whatever he had decided on. He willed his parabatai to take control from him for once and Jace did it, careful but certain, taking a lead Alec at least figure he could follow.

 _I love you_.

                     _Not the way **I love you**_ , but it would have to do.

Unlike with the talk after the memory demon incident, Alec had no wisps of hope left to be burned at the confession. Jace’s love for him was that of a parabatai, a brother, the kind of love they were suppose to feel for each other. Hearing the words still hurt, but at least the pain of it was familiar. Jace was right, things would only change if they allowed them to, if they let Valentine win. 

Alec had lived so long with his feelings, he knew what Jace’s love felt like, knew what it was like to be kissed by him now. Surely, he could know what his touch felt like as well and live with it. Jace already owned his heart and soul and, out of everything Alec still possessed, his body seemed like somewhat of a small and final thing to give away.

“You’re right,” he spoke quietly, a whisper shared just between the two of them. 

Their fingers brushed as Alec reached down to pull off his shirt, dropping the faded fabric somewhere along the bed and looking back at Jace, already feeling far too bare. He took a breath, his chest heaving as he reached hesitantly for his parabatai in turn, fingers hoovering at the lapels of his jacket for a moment before holding on to them. “Do you want me to- ?” Alec stammered, not so much finishing the question as illustrating it by pushing the leather over Jace’s shoulders.  

* * *

 They’d seen each other in varying states of undress before, had kept each other from bleeding out more times than Jace could count. He’d never thought anything of it in the past, never thought anything of the fact that he knew every rune on Alec’s body as well as he knew his own. Hell, he’d drawn most of them himself, just the same as Alec had for him.

After the shirt was discarded, he took stock of his parabatai, noting the fact that he seemed thinner now, the weeks spent in captivity hardly conducive to the training regimen they were used to. 

Jace tried not to think about it too hard as Alec helped him shrug off his jacket, leaving it in a careless heap beside him. His shirt came off immediately afterwards; he had little hesitation over undressing but he could see how uncomfortable Alec was, unwilling to push for too much, too fast.

There was only a brief hesitation before he laid his palms flat on Alec’s chest, smoothing his hands over the textured planes before gently urging him back down on his bunk. 

 _It’s still us_ , Jace told himself, his pulse quickening slightly as he followed his parabatai down. _Nothing has to change_. But he was careful to keep to Alec’s side, his lower body flat on the mattress and pressed against his parabatai’s hip while his upper body rested lightly on top of his chest.

The position was new to them outside of the sparring ring; with no adrenaline coursing through his veins, Jace was left with the curious ability to feel  _everything_ , turning over the sensations in his mind and coming to the conclusion that they were unfamiliar but not unpleasant.

One hand had already strayed to press over Alec’s heart, and Jace could feel the pulse of it beneath his palm. He didn’t have to listen to his own to know that they were in _sync_. 

Not once did he break Alec’s gaze, their faces pressed so close together that all Jace had to do to bridge the gap was cross two inches, if that. He wanted to say something, _anything_ , but it seemed as if the time for words had passed, as if the only thing he could possibly do to ease them both would be done with _touch_.

He was gentle when he traced the line of Alec’s jaw, cupped his cheek and drew him closer, kissing him long and slow and soft. There was stubble across his parabatai’s jaw and there was no way he could pretend he was anything other than who he was; the thought that he was almost relieved by this was startling only due to the fact that it was, in fact, _not startling at all_.

 _We’re bound together for life_ , Jace had once told Clary, and it was everything they were and so much more. He couldn’t imagine life without his parabatai by his side; that was _love_ , wasn’t it? What did it matter what _sort_ it was? The Clave tried to define it but perhaps it couldn’t be; it wasn’t some neat thing that you could cut up and put into containers. It wasn’t something you could parse and parcel like a _commodity_.

 _It was Alec_. _Just_ Alec, just him, and Jace deepened the kiss because he _wanted_  to, parting his lips and pulling him a little _closer,_ pushing against him just a little bit _harder_.

* * *

 Jace’s shirt came off soon after his jacket and Alec immediately averted his eyes from his body, a habit that apparently persisted even in light of their situation. He looked when he had to, never when he wanted to, and despite it all the moment felt like more of the later. Instead, his eyes lingered on Jace’s, hazel green on tainted blue, as drawn to them as he was about anything else in his parabatai and, once more, willing himself to get lost in it and _remain lost_. 

When Jace finally touched him it was a surprise. Not because Alec didn’t see it coming, the movement perfectly telegraphed, but over the feeling of it. A solid pressure above his heart; warm, sure and seemingly melting his skin underneath. It was the first time Jace touched him like this.

 _Breathe in, breathe out_. The move had his chest heaving, pushing back at Jace’s touch and feeling it all the more solidly. It was the anchor Alec didn’t know he needed, but the Angel knew he was grateful for having it.

Like this it felt a little easier to follow and so Alec laid himself back, unblinking as it was Jace’s gaze that truly guided him down, his parabatai right there along with him. Their chests were pressed at last, skin to skin for the very first time, and Alec felt a jolt that probably reverberated through his beating heart as Jace settled on top of him.

 _Breathe_ , he urged himself once more, lips parted in search of air as all over his body skin tingled at the simplest touch. It wasn’t the first time they touched, _hell_ it wasn’t the first time Jace ended up on top of him even, but it felt  _different_.

Ashamedly, Alec found himself thinking that they fitted like this. Jace’s hand over his heart probably feeling the jolt of it as his parabatai reached for his face and Alec leaned in helplessly. He was so _careful_ , gentle as Alec hardly imagined Jace to be as he drew him in for another kiss. Somehow, if felt even more intimate than before and, again, Alec melted into it. 

His eyes fell closed, a hand reaching up and settling on the back of Jace’s neck as Alec finally kissed him _back_. There was a surge of want, a shift in the atmosphere as Jace’s lips parted and the room faded around them along with the deepening of their kiss. Alec tasted Jace for the first time, up against his tongue, the warm touch of it into his mouth tightening his grip on Jace’s neck and making him pull his parabatai closer. 

For a moment he forgot himself. Jace pushed along his body, hot and steady, and Alec pushed _back_ , away from the thin mattress and into Jace’s drawing pull. His hands slid down his parabatai’s back, strong muscle and the ridges of his spine under his touch, all the way to the dip of Jace’s lower back. 

Now Alec didn’t know the first thing about what he was doing, never having been in this position and counting on Jace’s experience to make it work. But he had his _instinct_  and, on instinct alone his legs fell slightly open, grip falling to Jace’s hips and pulling him closer to his body as any recurring shame was swallowed into a kiss. 

There was already so much Alec would have to be forgiven for that the small push was just another transgression.           

* * *

 Jace’s breathing turned _ragged_ when he felt Alec come alive underneath him, gasping when his hands found their way to his waist and pulled him _closer_. It was impossible not to take that as an invitation, not when Alec was spreading his legs at the same time, and it barely took anything at all for Jace to shift the weight of him to rest between his parabatai’s thighs.

It was easy to forget everything like this, easy to forget, even for a little while, where they were. It had been so long since Jace had felt anything other than an undercurrent of _fear– both for Alec and himself_ – and he almost welcomed the opportunity to blank his mind, to lose himself with someone that he loved more than anything.

“ _Alec–_ ” He broke off from their kiss with a moan, eyes wide. Jace was _hard_ – _they both were, for obvious reasons_ – and his hips had started to push down on instinct, grinding down through layers of cloth and all he wanted to do was get rid of everything that still remained between them.

It felt– it felt _good_. _Better_ than good, really, and he could feel Alec’s warm breath against his cheek, their faces barely an inch apart as Jace rutted against him. The hand that was cradling Alec’s jaw had turned a tad more firm, sliding to the nape of his neck in search of purchase. 

“ _Alec,_ ” he said again, helplessly. Dipping his head to his parabatai’s throat, Jace mouthed restlessly at the skin of it, laving at the pale column and worrying at it gently with his _teeth_.

The heat between them was growing overwhelming and Jace didn’t know how long they lay there, but when he finally pulled back, there were red marks all over Alec’s neck and even along his collar. He was somewhat dazed as he surveyed his own handiwork, reddened mouth falling open as he thumbed over the largest of the bruises.

_Oh._

“ _Sorry_ ,” he mumbled, and pressed a kiss against Alec’s mouth in apology. His body felt heavy, restless, and judging from the way that his parabatai was squirming beneath him, Alec was feeling something of the _same_.

Jace swallowed hard, shifting his legs. His jeans were almost painfully uncomfortable now, and he glanced downwards, getting a hand between them as he trailed lightly down the sparse hair along Alec’s abdomen, his fingers hovering over the button of his jeans.

“I want– _I want to touch you_ ,” he said, and it seemed ludicrous to ask _now_  given the state they were both in, but Jace would bet money on his parabatai’s inexperience and he wasn’t certain if slow was slow _enough_.

_“Can I?”_

* * *

 The silent invitation of his parted thighs was taken, _claimed_ , same as his lips, and without parting from them Jace settled between Alec’s legs. His parabatai’s body felt about as scorching as his aura, a burning presence weighting down on Alec’s chest and making him want more of it, opening up for it even. In response his legs parted further, seamlessly cradling Jace’s frame.  

If Alec had thought they fit well together before, he was certain of it now. Jace’s hips were perfectly famed by his body, their lower halves intertwined so thoroughly Alec could feel the length of Jace’s hard on through his clothes, pressed right on to him, _because of him_.

 _Had he done that?_ Was it because of him?

Jace seemed as surprised as Alec was, his mismatched eyes wide with confusion, reddened lips parted into a _moan_. The sound traveled straight down Alec’s spine, peaking his arousal, then, as if that wasn’t enough, Jace pushed **DOWN** and Alec couldn’t help but to thrust back.

It set them on fire, or at least that was what Alec felt like. Jace’s hand was burning at the back of his neck, their naked chests pressed as they pushed into each other and thrust frantically. 

 _More_ , it was all Alec could think of right then, baring his throat like an animal and outright moaning as Jace’s lips claimed the sensitive skin there, the sinking of his teeth making him _moan_. He felt himself grow harder and there was no room in his mind for the shame of it then, not when all Alec could think about was Jace, his presence, his body and his kisses. _So this is what it feels like_. 

Alec had touched himself before, and though he didn’t do it quite often he did thought he knew what pleasure felt like- Except he _didn’t_. This, with Jace, it was unlike anything he had ever experienced before by himself. 

The simple touch of his parabatai brought his skin to life, the feel of his lips making Alec acutely aware of whatever spot they reached. It was all consuming, _maddening_ , and he was still half-dressed, simply laid beneath Jace and unmade by his very presence.

 _Sorry_ , Jace spoke, and Alec couldn’t even tell what he was apologizing for, simply shaking his head and tightening him hold on Jace’s hips, not realizing he was pulling him down by now and helping him keep rhythm. 

Jace’s burning touch traveled down his chest in a blazing trail, coursing over the dark hair that vanished into Alec’s tented jeans, grazing the edges of his parabatai rune on it’s way. It sizzled at the touch, painfully and pleasurably so, and Alec could only imagine what Jace’s whole hand there would feel like, already yearning for it. 

By the time Jace asked permission to touch him Alec had no idea why he was even doing it. _Why ask for something that has always been yours?_ His dark eyes narrowed and creased for a fleeting second before settling on the spot where Jace’s hand rested, so close to where he wanted it and yet unmoving. 

 _“Please,”_ Alec begged in whisper.

Timidly he reached down between them, willing his fingers not to shake as he opened the button on his own pants ( knuckles grazing Jace’s pants, close as they were ) and pulled the zipper down. The sound of it felt deafening in the small room, so loud Alec would have blushed if his cheeks weren’t already flushed with color. 

Looking up Alec’s hazel eyes found Jace’s, the rough jeans he wore pushed down his thighs though Alec refused to look at it, instead lost in his parabatai’s gaze and losing himself further at the same time. Right then, it was the only thing he really believed in.  

“I trust you.”

* * *

 Jace’s breath caught when Alec moved to undress himself, torn between wanting to _watch_ everything and the _look_  in his parabatai’s eyes. If he could spare a thought beyond the bubble of their encounter, he might question where these feelings came from, might wonder how he could’ve gone so long without ever thinking about _men_ in this way. But there was no space to think or breathe outside of _Alec_ , and in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to break his gaze, anyway.

_I trust you._

It was a simple truth, something that Jace had held onto throughout most of his life. It was always Alec by his side, always him, and despite everything that had gone on when Clary had come into their lives, what was going on between them felt almost as if it were a re-pledging of their bond to each other.

There was a heavy look in his eyes when he shifted back, moving with purpose as he tugged the rest of Alec’s clothing away. His own followed soon thereafter, and then there was nothing at all between them, nothing but skin on skin, Jace’s arms braced on either side of Alec’s shoulders as he lowered himself back on top of him.

 _He’d been here before_. 

Intellectually, he _knew_ that. The first time had been when he was sixteen, excited and nervous and almost painfully _aroused_. Jace tried to recall her name, the shape of her mouth when she _moaned_ , but nothing would _come_.

 _Because it meant nothing_ , a little voice inside of him whispered, and _this_ – This was the opposite of that. 

Jace was cradled between his parabatai’s legs and he was kissing him like tomorrow didn’t _exist_ , but more than the fire that burned so hotly between them, he knew that he would remember every second of this for the rest of his life.

To say that he wasn’t scared would be a _lie_ , but Alec’s body responded so sweetly to every touch that it was impossible to continue being so. His body had far more traction than that of any woman Jace had ever been with, the scattering of hair against his torso making him shiver whenever they rubbed against each other. 

“ _Do you feel that?_ ” Jace asked, and his voice sounded thick, _drugged_. He’d unconsciously been rubbing at the mark on Alec’s waist, palming their parabatai rune between their slick bodies (and when had Jace broken a sweat?), his hips stilling momentarily.

Alec’s skin was burning where Jace was kneading it; he could feel his own mark tingling at his side. “ _Alec…_ ” A last kiss was pressed on his parabatai’s mouth before he moved down the length of his body, pressing a wet kiss against his rune. He tasted salt and sweat on his tongue, and Jace had drawn the rune so low that his jaw grazed Alec’s length when he bent down.

There was a brief hesitation before Jace wrapped his fingers around his erection and squeezed gently, his already-flushed cheeks deepening even further. It was the first time he’d ever touched a cock that hadn’t been his own, but his years of pleasuring himself proved to be more than adequate _experience_.

Likewise, he’d once dated a particularly adventurous seelie that had preferred penetration in this fashion, and she’d always said that it helped the more relaxed and turned-on she _got_. Important information considering that Jace had nothing with which to ease the way; Valentine allowed him little more than a change of clothing in his room, and besides which, he suspected that his father cared little for their _comfort_.

He lifted his chin, eyes locking on to Alec’s as he slowly sucked on his own fingers, crimson mouth wrapping around two digits as he licked them _wet_.

“ _Try to relax,_ ” Jace said, and his middle finger was dripping as he pressed it against the entrance of his parabatai’s body, moving in tight, firm circles until he felt flesh give way and pull him in.

* * *

 The rest of their clothes were shed under the surety of Jace’s touch and Alec didn’t have the presence of mind to be self-conscious. It was hard for him to think much of anything while Jace was lowering himself on top of him again, the contact of their naked bodies making him gasp and cling to his parabatai’s arms. 

Alec had thought he’d felt Jace’s arousal before, but it was nothing compared to touch of naked skin and the soft glide of his erection alongside Alec’s own.

Sweat was pooling up on their bodies already, making them slide against each other with a sleeked up ease that begged for movement in a way Alec was far too eager to oblige. He moved then, hands braced on Jace’s shoulders as his hips instinctively pushed up into his parabatai’s downward thrusts. 

It wasn’t like Alec knew what he was doing, but it felt _good_ and so he kept it up, urged by Jace’s equally urgent movement and striving to match it, unprompted.

Amidst their frantic movement Jace’s hand found its way to the sharp curve of his hip, right above his parabatai rune. It was like he had listened to Alec’s wondering thoughts and the answer to them came in the form of burning heat. So much like the first time Jace had branded the rune into his skin and yet so different Alec felt reclaimed by it.

_Do you feel that?_

_“Yes.”_

Their connection was set ablaze, golden and burning like it had been before only in battle. Right then Alec became as aware of Jace as he was in a fight, knowing he was going to kiss him before their lips even met and knowing that kiss would be the last one he’d get for now. 

He traveled south after that, mouth hoovering over Alec’s heated skin, breath tingling wherever it touched until it came to the source of his burning, his parabatai rune. 

Jace _licked it_. 

Alec had to bite down a moan, the keening sound threatening to escape him as an open mouth kiss was lavished upon his rune. It was so much- Too much, already Alec felt like he couldn’t take any more of it and then Jace’s hand found its way around his erection. 

His parabatai touched him better than Alec had ever managed to touch himself. Calloused fingers wrapped around his length, their movement sure, firm on the downstroke and with a perfect twist at the head that had his abdomen constricting with the urge to thrust. 

It was hard to look at Jace like this, down between his naked legs with his face hoovering only a few inches from his erection, but it was even harder to look _away_. Mismatched eyes captured Alec’s gaze, their color reduced to thin line surrounding blackness, as intense as Jace _felt_.

 _Try to relax_.

Nodding was all Alec could do at the request, lips parted as he watched Jace suck on his own fingers and was hit with the inevitability of where exactly those fingers were headed. 

He had never done it before, not even to himself. Being a gay shadowhunter Alec didn’t even considered sex outside his scarce fantasies, to do it with another man wasn’t something he ever imagined would actually happen. The fact it was about to and that it was with Jace left him equally elated and ashamed. 

 _I’m glad it’s him_ , he thought as Jace’s finger gently ran over the taut skin between his legs, and the very thought burned him with regret for even considering it. Jace was doing this because he didn’t have a choice, neither of them had a choice, and thinking about it was a downward spiral Alec was distracted from by the gentle nudging of Jace’s touch. 

Inevitably his body tensed at first, clenching down at the idea of an intrusion, but Jace was nothing if not patient and the small circles he traced over the entrance to Alec’s body eventually turned dread into wonder. _What would it feel like?_ he caught himself thinking, and the very thought turned into the breach Jace had been waiting for, his finger smoothly sliding in and making Alec’s breath hitch at the intrusion. 

It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, not painful like he had been mostly expecting it to be but odd, alien. His body was still tight and Jace was forced to move carefully at first, the slow drag of his finger loosening Alec from the inside and making him struggle not to close his legs. 

At first he wondered how anything else would ever fit inside of him like this, but as it went on Alec found himself relaxing, his feet planted upon the thin mattress and his hips slowly pushing down by the time Jace had gotten a second finger in. He was impaling his own body into them, Alec realized with a surge of embarrassment, the flush an invisible addition to his already heated skin.

 _“Jace..”_ he started, meaning to apologize, but the twist to his parabatai’s fingers as he looked up had him gasping instead. A jolt of pleasure traveled up his body and instead of saying he was sorry Alec found himself begging, though he didn’t even know what for.  _“Please.”_

* * *

 Jace’s breathing was uneven as he touched Alec, preparing him with a patience that he didn’t even know he _possessed_. He had two fingers inside him and he was pistoning them in an excruciatingly slow fashion, fucking him with them as surely as he was loosening him. Somewhere along the way, Alec had started pushing back against his fingers, the tension along his body dissipating into something almost approaching _abandon_.

To say that it was breath-taking to behold was an understatement, only compounded by the fact that Jace knew him so well outside of this. His stoic, reserved parabatai, so obsessed with rules and order– if someone had told Jace that he was capable of letting go like this, he would’ve laughed in their face.

As it was, all he could do was _kiss_ him, as helpless as Alec seemed to be under his ministrations.

 _Please_.

“ _Anything,_ ” Jace said, and there was a desperation in his voice that he couldn’t even begin to _explain_. “ _Everything._ Parabatai, _whatever you want, I–_ ” And the rest was lost as he pulled Alec into another kiss, one hand reaching up to clutch him by the nape of his neck even as he withdrew the other away from his body.

Taking a ragged breath, he positioned himself between Alec’s legs, his cock nudging against his slick entrance. Jace was so _hard_ , almost painfully so, and his heart was racing at the thought of what they were doing, trapped in those eyes and so unwilling to look away.

“ _Alec…_ ” His arms were braced against either side of his parabatai’s head, his view entirely unobstructed as he _finally pushed in_. Even with Alec’s obvious excitement and Jace’s care, he was still _tight_ , the pinch of him drawing a quiet gasp as he continued forth, the slide in so slow and inexorable that it felt almost like _fate_.

_Perhaps it was, at that._

It felt like it went on _forever_ , the gravity of the action knitting them together so tightly that Jace could scarcely tell where he began and Alec ended. All he knew was that he was obsessed with the taste of his parabatai’s _sweat_ , his mind filled with the scent of him and the feel of him, every sense swimming with thoughts of him, _just him_ , as if he’d imprinted his name on Jace’s heart and soul.

_Angel, was this why it was forbidden?_

When at last he could go no further, Jace was unsurprised to find that he was pressed against Alec’s chest, his elbows bent and his face barely an inch away from his. As if being _inside_ him wasn’t enough, as if he needed to _touch him_ , _feel him_ , be in contact with every part of him that he could _reach_.

“ _Parabatai,_ ” he said, helplessly. The pleasure felt almost _overwhelming_ , as if it was a tidal wave that was threatening to drown him and it was only Alec that could keep him tethered to the shore. 

He _moved_ , then, withdrawing shallowly and pushing back into his body with a sigh, the breath exhaled against flushed lips. It felt like they were in sync, with Jace pulling in each stuttered breath that Alec let out, and it was so, _so good._  As if every other time he’d fucked before tonight had been a _joke_ , a childish kiss behind the playgrounds and this, _this_ was the reality, the kind that reached into your chest and ripped out your heart and gave it to your _lover_ , because among the multitude of other things that Alec was to him, he was apparently _that_ now, too.

The cadence of Jace’s hips had built up into a harder, faster rhythm until they were _fucking in earnest_ , they were parabatai and they were _breaking the law_ – Angel, they were actually _doing_ this– and Jace felt like he was going to burn up from the inside out. His stomach was _taut_ , every muscle straining with effort as the bunk shook with their movements.

When he kissed Alec, it was because he had no other _choice_ , bridging the minute gap between them as desperately as he took the rest of him. It was hot, deep, _wet_ , his tongue thrusting between his lips in a mimicry of their coupling, one hand buried in his parabatai’s hair as the other braced itself on the narrow bunk.

 _Alec, Alec, Alec_ – it was mindless, _instinctual_ , and Jace broke off with a gasp, mismatched eyes wide as he pulled back just enough to see his face. “ _Look at me_ ,” he said, _pleading_  now, but for _what_ , he couldn’t even begin to _articulate_. His skin was tingling, burning beneath the surface of it, every cell of him so attuned to the man that he was holding so desperately and yet still, it wasn’t _enough._

“Angel,  _I want you._ ”

* * *

  _Everything_. 

Alec didn’t know know what he was asking for, but he got it in the form of Jace sliding over his body, tugging his neck into a kiss and pulling away his fingers in a way that left Alec feeling bereft, gasping into his lips. 

Right then he was reduced being of emotion, of feeling, wondering if that’s how Jace always felt as he took what he wanted and did what he thought was right, consequences be damned. That was Alec then, reaching for his best friend’s naked shoulders and clutching him close, parting his legs wantonly and moaning at the blunt press of Jace’s cock near his entrance.

 _Yes. Yes, this_ … Alec might not know what he wanted but Jace did, pushing into him and wrenching all air away from his lungs in one practiced move. 

Already it was too much. Jace was pushing into his body, stretching it into the shape of him, _claiming_ every inch he could find with inexorable certainty. The fingerprints that so far existed only over Alec’s soul, Jace’s fingerprints, were spread over his body in Jace’s sure take of his hips, in the burning hold of his darkened eyes. 

For the longest time it felt like he didn’t breathe at all, trapped under the strength of Jace’s gaze and held afloat by his unrelenting movement. It felt like that up until the moment he was finally _inside_ him.

It was a whole different burn then, a different feeling. Their chests were pressed together, their bodies as close as they had ever been with Jace fully sheathed into him. Alec swore he could feel him pulsing with the need to move like this, and he _wanted_ him to.

 _“Jace,”_ he nearly begged again, not recognizing his own voice in the wanton plea that escaped him, answered as his parabatai finally _moved_.

Like this Alec could feel _everything_. The slow drag as Jace pulled back and retreated half way out of him, the hot stinging burn as he thrust back in. Alec gasped with the push, his hold on Jace’s shoulders tightening reflexively, his thighs clenching in order to soften the impact- he wanted more of it. 

Gasps for air turned into moans, the sound of them swallowed by the push of Jace’s tongue into his lips, his kiss as claiming as his movements. _We’re actually doing this_ , his thoughts echoed at the same time Alec wondered if that’s what sex felt like to people, if it was always like this.

It couldn’t be, _no_. It was too much to give just anyone, too intense of a thing. He felt out of his mind with it, out of his body as he watched from afar as everything he had was claimed by his parabatai’s touch and lips, the way he kissed committed to Alec’s memory same as the feeling of each thrust. _Look at me_ , Jace demanded, and Alec did so, helplessly, his own hazel eyes blown to nothing but darkened pits trapped under Jace’s hold.

 _I want you_. 

“You have me,” he vowed fervently,  _“Anything, Jace- Everything.”_

There was no novelty to the confession other than the fact it was the first time the words ever crossed Alec’s lips. A truth he held secret for so long, wrenched out of him by the strength of Jace’s gaze and the weight of what they now shared.

 _Alec would never be the same after this_. He knew so as well as he knew himself, could feel it changing with the ever growing pressure in chest and the rising pleasure in his gut. Physically he clung to his parabatai, legs coming up to the back of his thighs and opening his body ever further, hands clutching at Jace’s sweat-slick back and pulling him even closer. 

Between them Alec’s shaft was pressed down by the planes of Jace’s stomach, the feeling of his growing thrusts enough to bring him to the very edge of pleasure, _untouched_.

No one else could make him feel like this, no one else ever would, and so Alec called for Jace’s name with more fervor than he ever called for any Angel, trembling in his hold and, finally, spilling himself between his bodies with a nearly pained gasp.

 _“Jace.”_   

* * *

 Jace was as caught in his parabatai’s _stare_ almost as much as he was by his _body_ , so lost in what they were doing that the rest of their circumstance became nothing more than white noise. Alec was giving him everything and Jace was taking it all, _gladly_ , and the spark in his chest burned its way to the very core of him.

He was gasping now– Jace could _hear_ himself as he labored above his parabatai– strong thighs clasping him so tightly, pulling him deeper, _further_ , Alec’s cock searing as it slid between their bodies, trapped between the space-that-wasn’t-a-space-at-all. They were pressed so damned _close_ to each other and Jace wanted to _swear_ at the intensity of it, wanted to ask Alec if he could feel it too, the _power_ , the _energy_ that buzzed in the space behind his _eyes_ , but he _already_ knew the answer.

It wasn’t long before his parabatai was _coming_ , moaning his name and shaking so hard that it was all Jace could do to keep him from flying apart. He kissed his mouth and swallowed down every sound he made, moving inside of him throughout the aftershocks, taking him as carefully as he could as he dragged shudders anew from Alec’s pliant body.

His own completion came not long after this, _urgency_  finally speeding his cadence as one hand slipped to the nape of Alec’s neck, virtually holding him in place as he snapped his hips once, _twice_ , his mouth pressed against his jaw. 

Jace didn’t say his name out loud; _he didn’t have to._ His heart was beating so loudly, so in sync with Alec’s that there wasn’t even the pretense of an echo anymore. They were _one_ and he could feel the low buzz of his parabatai’s sated pleasure right beneath the blinding intensity of his own, the utter bliss that pressed against his heart and his lungs.

 _Alec_. It was _his_ name, repeated  _over and over_  in his mind, and Jace couldn’t close his eyes, _couldn’t look away_ , his hips pressed so tightly against the other’s body that there wasn’t even an inch of space between them. Jace had come inside of him, had made a space for himself within and left his mark on him. The taste of Alec was making him _dizzy_ ; the smell of his sweat and his arousal combining and it was an _animal_  thing, pure instinct that made him shiver, his fingers tightening against the parts of him that he held.

To say that it was overwhelming was an _understatement_. Jace had never experienced sex in this way before and he knew he never would again. At least, not with anyone _else_.

There was a brief eternity as he lay there, still buried inside of Alec and still sharing each breath that he exhaled. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to break the spell, didn’t want to answer the inevitable question;  _what had they just done?_

But in spite of himself, Jace couldn’t bring himself to regret any part of this. The hand that had been gripping Alec’s neck came to cradle his jaw, touching him so gently that he could have been made from spun glass.

“ _Look at me_ ,” Jace said again, and this time, when he kissed him there were no orders behind it, no threat looming above them. He kissed him because he _wanted_ to, because his heart hurt and the only way he knew how to ease what they were feeling was _this_ – still _forbidden_ , still bittersweet, but as inevitable as the fate that had led Jace to the Lightwood’s home almost a decade ago.

When he pulled away, there was an inch between them, nothing more. “Parabatai, I–” But the loud banging on his door swallowed the rest of his words, a heavy fist crashing against the metal.

 _Not yet_ , Jace thought, but reality was coming back to them with a vengeance. The rough voice sounded through the door, belonging to the man who ferreted Alec to and from his own quarters.

“ _Time’s up._ ”

* * *

 There were few ways in which to describe what Alec was feeling then, an explosive combination of emotions, pleasure, _love_ \- It was, without a doubt, the biggest high the young nephilim had ever experienced and Alec feared he would have fallen apart into uncountable pieces if not for Jace’s anchoring hold and grounding presence. 

 _I got you_ , it went without saying, the sentiment imbued into every kiss, stark in the carefulness behind his parabatai’s gestures. Jace fucked him through his orgasm with a tenderness Alec didn’t thought him capable of before today, not dispensed to him at last, and Alec _felt him_ all the way through it, Jace’s pleasure an undercurrent to his own that was soon to rise with the inevitability of a shifting tide. 

Alec still trembled with his own release, each thrust making him shudder with the stimulation of his now-sensitive body, at the same time Jace reached his peak and Alec _felt it._  It was like coming all over _again_.

Right then they were **one**. A single body, shuddering with pleasure, and a single heart, beating frantically inside both their chests. Alec panted for air and he felt Jace doing the same above him, their chests pressed so closely together one could not draw a breath without the other exhaling in tandem. It was his biggest high, and the one moment Alec never wished to come down from. 

Who knew what was to be of him once he did, how the both of them would face the consequences of _this_?

 _Perfect_ , that’s what it had felt like, what he was _still_ feeling, and Alec was as elated and he was terrified in realizing it. This moment between them, the very pleasure still coursing through his veins, was as closest to heaven as Alec would ever find himself, and it was _stolen_ , bound to never repeat itself.

Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes at the thought, glassy hazel turning to Jace upon demand because he couldn’t _not look_ , not when his parabatai still held him so tenderly, still made him feel _loved_ even though their duty was over and done with. Alec looked but there was nothing to be seen as Jace leaned down to _kiss him_.

For a second of confusion he was still, shocked, and then Alec was kissing back, unable to deny his parabatai this- unable to deny him _anything_. Jace started to speak, but if he were to do Alec a single favor ( if Alec ever dared to _ask_ ) he would rather he said nothing. The reassurance that everything would be alright and that they had made it through this was the last thing Alec wanted right then. 

 _It won’t change anything between us if we don’t let it,_ Jace had told him when they had started, and he had been wrong, so wrong. It changed **everything**.

Alec was almost glad with the interruption, thankful as he crashed back into the harsh reality of their situation. Again the walls were made of steel, waves unrelentingly crashing outside the ship at the same time a harsh knock startled them from the outside. He didn’t say a word as he sat up, following Jace and wincing as his parabatai pulled away from him, away from his _body_.

There was no time to take stock of himself, no time for anything but pulling his pants back on before the door was being shoved open in waiting for him. Alec could hardly feel anything but shame then, knowing the man there knew what they have done, that it was clear in the bruises sucked around his neck and in the mess of come across his stomach he hastily tried to cover by pulling his shirt on backwards.

As he walked Alec could feel Jace’s seed running down the insides of his thighs, adding up to the ache between his legs. It would seem his shame was to know no bounds and he couldn’t do more than avert his gaze as a crass joke about conjugal visits was made, couldn’t bring himself to _look_ at Jace as he took his leave.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thought, the sentiment projected as fiercely as Alec could manage it, and he truly felt so. Sorry this had to happen, sorry Jace had to be the one to do it, but, above all, Alec was sorry he had forgotten himself for a moment there, sorry he had  _enjoyed it_. As it was, all he could do was hope that Jace would ever find it in himself to forgive him.


	2. Storge

_Two days passed._

Two excruciating days of _wondering_ , hovering in the space of uncertainty, and it was clear that Valentine was waiting for _something,_  but for _what_ , Jace couldn’t even think to guess. He could feel Alec’s presence through their parabatai bond; perhaps a little stronger than usual, tinged with _distress_ , but given their circumstances, nothing so out of the ordinary. It was a cruel joke to think they’d been forced into doing what they’d done simply to debunk hundreds of years worth of _law_ , but perhaps… perhaps now his father would be _satisfied_.

Jace knew better than to _ask_ for a mission, hardly eager to get more blood on his hands in Valentine’s name, but he knew that the reward would be the chance to see his parabatai again and part of him… part of him would have been _relieved_ to be called upon. 

Because he needed to see Alec. _He needed to_. What they’d done… Jace didn’t need their bond to know that his parabatai would be agonizing over it. He knew him well enough by now, had seen the stricken look in his eyes when the guard had come to take him away. Jace’s own mind had been spinning and everything had happened so fast, barely able to pull his pants on before they’d kicked open his door. 

_Shut your mouth._ Those had been the last words Jace had said before they’d taken Alec away, and if he could take them back, he would. The guard had made some joke about a conjugal visit and it was all Jace could do not to punch him right there, wasting his breath on telling him to fuck off rather than spending their last few precious seconds together reassuring Alec as he should have. 

It had taken three guards to shove him back into his room but only one to take his parabatai away, and if that wasn’t indicative of their respective mental states, nothing else would be.

Jace was climbing the walls by the second day, locked in his room and not even allowed to take his meals with the rest of the crew at the mess. Instead, he got delivered trays of his food, (probably spit in, considering the dirty look that Pangborn gave him), with plastic utensils that Jace accidentally broke in half when he tried to spear a bit of chicken.

It hardly mattered, in the long run. Angel knew he wasn’t in the mood to eat and though he’d asked to see his father repeatedly, his requests went unanswered. Jace almost wished that his parabatai bond with Alec _had_ changed in some drastic way so that he had something of worth to tell Valentine, but he knew he couldn’t lie his way out of this room. His father could always tell when he lied; now would be no different.

By the fourth day, Jace was ready to attempt to fight his way to Alec, _consequences be damned_ , but before he could even _try_ , Valentine himself made an appearance. Instead of a lunch tray, the door opened to reveal his father, immaculately dressed in contrast to Jace’s disheveled state, and in spite of himself, he stood a little straighter, years of discipline kicking in as he tried to gather himself.

“ _Jonathan_ ,” Valentine said, his dark eyes narrowing slightly before he stepped fully into his room. There were guards behind him but he waved them back, keeping their station outside and making no move to follow. “ _You’re looking fit._ ”

Jace eyed him warily. “Is this my debrief?” he asked. This was the longest stretch that he’d gone _confined_ on the Morning Star, and he didn’t know what to make of it. Valentine had wanted a weapon from the get-go, had made no secret of holding Alec over him, but the _silence_ … the silence was _new_. 

In answer, his father smiled faintly. “It hardly seems necessary,” he said. “Auguste reported that you performed your duties; only _time_ will do the rest.”

“Time?” Jace echoed. Surely he couldn’t mean to keep them apart _longer_ … Being on uncertain territory made him bolder, perhaps, or maybe it was simply the fact that he was _desperate_. Because Valentine had raised him and had always punished him for showing _weakness_ , but at this point… what choice did he _have?_

“Father, _please_ ,” Jace said finally. “I need to see him. I– I’ll do whatever you want.”

* * *

After what they did there was only _darkness_. Figuratively as Alec dwelled on his own somber thoughts and literally as he was kept in the dimly lit room he came to call his aboard the Morning Star. He had all but dragged himself inside after being escorted from Jace’s room, pained, dirty and somewhat convinced that feeling so was his punishment for what had transpired, a cruel mockery of his forbidden want for his parabatai. 

There it was now, all over his body for what ought to be the one and only time. Jace had left a trail of markings, for the bruises of kisses around his neck to the hand-prints on Alec’s hips, his taste somehow lingered on Alec’s tongue as well as this new emptiness he now felt in a private place inside him that was forcibly shaped in the image of his parabatai. There was a need there only Jace would ever be able to fill again, so it was to remain unfilled. 

He wasn’t allowed a stele unless he was to rune Jace’s skin, so there were no Iratzes to heal his bruises or to ease the ache Alec felt with every step. They would have to heal on a human pace, _slow_ , and so Alec was kept with the reminders. His room was granted a small utilitarian bathroom and he did clean himself as best he could the moment he was back, but cold water could only do so much and after that all that was left for Alec was to curl upon his thin mattress, knees bent close to his body, and be alone with his  _thoughts_.

Unsurprisingly they were consumed with Jace, oscillating between the vivid memories of what had transpired between them and the inevitable descent into the dreary consequences of it. Never mind that it was forbidden, that they had broken the law and done the unmentionable to each other, even if no one back home or at the Clave were ever to know Alec, surprisingly, wasn’t mainly concerned with _that_. All he cared about was the way Jace would look at him. 

This unfit feeling had always been a constant for him, a wrongness Alec had grown accustomed to, but Jace had been unwillingly dragged into this and though he had been nothing but wonderful about it - though the moment he had given Alec had been something akin to a dream even inside the nightmare they were in - his hand still had been forced by threats and fear and it was only a matter of time until he came to resent him for it. 

_Shut your mouth_. 

          Maybe he already had. 

_If I had been better,_ Alec couldn’t help but to think, if only he had been better at hiding it then perhaps Valentine wouldn’t have come up with this idea. The certainty of his weakness ate away at him as much as the shame over it, his pitiful need for Jace still so present and overbearing Alec felt nothing but disgust at himself for it and _fear_. Not for his life, not for his safety, but for the one connection in his life that had meant something special to him, the one person he loved- He could have survived anything if they hadn’t taken Jace away from him like this.  

The only light in his days came from the three times his door was open for food to be delivered, it was how Alec counted the time and how he knew a full day had passed for every three trays he received. Four days passed without a single word from Jace. Alec could only assume he hadn’t gone into missions since he hadn’t drew any runes for him neither got to see him as a reward. Or he had, and failed at it, though he believed he would have known if Jace had failed, would he not? 

On the fourth day there was no tray. The usual grunt, Blackwell, opened the door to his room and instead of bringing the usual food he was followed inside by two other men, their faces ones Alec had seen around but had no names to place upon. It was the first sign something was wrong. He rose from where he had been sitting in his bed, blinking away at the light and wondering if he was to follow them, if Jace was finally going to be sent out on a mission and his runes would be needed. It wasn’t the case. 

_“Get him,”_ Blackwell ordered, and Alec tried not to fight it because he was only here for Jace, but it was still hard not to as the two Circle members reached for his arms with vice-like grips, no doubt aided by the power of strength runes.

He was pushed into his knees, and that was when he started struggling, the very moment it became clear those men weren’t there to escort him anywhere. His resistance was received with a pointed kick to his gut and panic rose into his throat as well as bile as his body bent in half at the impact. 

_Why?_ But it was pointless to ask, no explanation at all being offered as a second blow followed the first, this time a punch squarely aimed at his face and so rattling Alec found himself spitting blood into the concrete floor. He had no idea of what he had done, or if he had done anything at all, and Alec would have been concerned for Jace if it wasn’t for the undeniable certainty that his parabatai had been okay only a minute ago, at least physically. 

As it was, he had no idea of what was going on with him other that the fact it **hurt** and that, without his runes and weak as he was, he was powerless to fight it. A second kick came, even more winding that the first, and the same question from before pulsed within his mind along with an undercurrent of helplessness.  

_Why was this happening to him?_

* * *

There was a beat as Valentine regarded him, a pregnant pause that, once again, Jace couldn’t fathom the reason for. His father was studying him with all the interest that he would a bug under a microscope– nothing new there, all things considered– but he had to know by now that Jace couldn’t lie to him with any sort of success.

“You may see Alexander when you’ve served your purpose,” his father said finally. “Thus far, you’ve done nothing to earn an audience.”

“ _Then give me a mission_ ,” Jace said. His fingers clenched, chin lifting in spite of himself. “You’ve kept me locked in here for _days_. What possible use could I have…?”

His voice cut off when he saw his father’s _smile._

It was faint, curling at the edges of his mouth, but it was there all the same. Jace was so confused by it that he didn’t realize what was happening at first, didn’t register the tang of blood welling on his _tongue_. He lifted his hand to his jaw and it came away crimson; Jace looked to Valentine in confusion.

_Had he been poisoned?_

But _pain_ hit him before he could lend voice to the query, so abrupt and so powerful that Jace staggered with the force of it, _finally_ realizing what was happening as he reached out, gripping the edge of his bunk just so he could remain _upright_.

_Alec._  

His parabatai’s name was a shout in his mind, and whether or not he was screaming it out loud as well, Jace didn’t know or care. Alec’s _pain_ hit him like a battering ram, and Jace reached for their bond _instinctively_ , crumpling like paper as he fell to the floor, hammered by the force of it.

**_ALEC._ **

Jace could _feel_ him– their bond was so open now, completely and utterly, barely resembling the persistent, _quiet_ presence that he usually felt in the back of his mind. 

_This_ – this felt _raw_ , _excruciating_ in the way that Alec’s attempt to track him through their bond had been weeks ago, except now it was so much _worse_ because Jace wasn’t resisting _at all_. Alec was crying out for him and in turn Jace was _trying_ to reach for him– _oh Angel, he was_ trying _–_  so desperately casting out with his heart, his mind, his _soul,_  everything he had was poured into the effort to get to him, to _help_ , but in reality all Jace could manage was a pained stagger forward, crawling pathetically in front of his father’s scrutinizing gaze. 

_Alec, Alec._ Jace’s voice was desperate, _animal_ , and he could feel his ribs cracking under the heel of a steel-toed boot and no one, no one was there except for his father and _he_  wasn’t laying a single finger on him, but _oh_ , Jace could _feel_ it all the same.

His chest was a wet mess of blood and bone, blunt force trauma relentless as the beating went on and on _and on._  They were soldiers, they always had been, and Alec could take a beating but his runes weren’t active, hadn’t been for over a _month,_  and with his all too human body, _bravery_  could only take them so far.

“ _Father– father, **PLEASE**_ ,” he begged, and even amidst the torrent of pain, Jace could _understand_ what was happening, what his father had _done,_ what his father was doing _right at this moment,_ and the thought of doing so made him sick, but Jace knew he would **_KILL_** whoever Valentine set him on a million times over if it meant that it would _stop._

“ _Don’t kill him_ ,” Jace sobbed, and oh angel, _angel_ , he could _feel_ Alec’s heart– the panicked trip hammer beat, the confusion, the _helplessness_. “ _Please don’t, please–_ ” 

He was clinging to their bond with everything they had, frantic as he shoved himself against the solid warmth of Alec’s mind, bile rising in his throat as he felt his parabatai’s hand stray like a claw towards their rune– _no, no, **DON’T**_ – and he tried to fight through his/their _panic_ , trying to calm him, to let him know that he was there, _that he wasn’t alone_ , stumbling over the haze of their intertwined emotions even as he _begged for his life._

Jace didn’t know how long it went on, didn’t know how he ended up from _begging_ at his father’s feet to eating the cold metal of the hallway floor, two guards holding down his arms while one shoved his face down, but his knuckles were split and one of the guards was cradling his jaw. 

All he knew was that he was _losing_ it, his parabatai was _hurting_  and he was losing it, and Jace struggled like an animal until Valentine spoke into a radio and the beating _stopped_ , but the pain _didn’t_ because Alec was hurt so badly he couldn’t breathe, and Jace needed to go to him, _he did, he did_ , and his father stooped down, pinched his chin between forefinger and thumb and _sighed_.

“Not a myth, it appears,” he said. “Though I did expect _better_  of you, somehow.”

* * *

Feeling like nothing more than a mundane for once was tinged with  _painful_ irony. Alec’s body was that of a warrior, but his nephilim blood relied on the power of runes and without those his muscles were helpless, forced to simply brace themselves for the upcoming blows.

Bone gave in under the harshness of kicks, his ribs collapsing inwards and leaving him _breathless_ , an arm twisted so far back that it it had snapped out of it’s socket. Panic rose within Alec’s constricting chest as the pain spots grew all over his body and his true fear wasn’t that he was going to die right then - this doesn’t felt like it was meant to kill him, just to hurt him - his concern, unsurprisingly, was for _Jace_.

His parabatai’s burning presence lit up Alec’s mind as another punch had him seeing nothing but white spots before his eyes. Jace was calling for him, _reaching_ , his conscience pushing it’s way into Alec’s mind and taking the edge of the pain with it only because it was taking it frantically upon himself. _So that’s what this was_.

_“Jace,”_ Alec called out through a spurt of blood to his lips, falling back with a heavy boot to his chest and feeling his chest collapsing even further under the weight of it. 

Inside his heart pulsed unsteady, frantic and struggling, drawing Jace’s own heartbeat into its stuttering rhythm. He’d thought this display was mean to hurt him somehow, to be a _lesson_ , but through the pain and darkness ( tinged bright only by Jace’s presence ) Alec saw it for what it really was: torture, aimed at his parabatai and no one else. 

No longer a lure then, but a _voodoo doll_.

Valentine had perverted their bond and the deeper connection now gave him leverage over Jace like never before, it gave him a way to hurt him without him even being near. As long as he had Alec now he would be able to hurt Jace.

_**NO**_. Panic rose into Alec’s throat like bile, choking whatever breath he had left with the terrifying realization of exactly what kind of weapon he could become. Blindly he reached for his own hip, for the only rune he had left darkened upon his skin and that now burned with Jace’s presence. Alec clawed at the top of it even through the assault, curling under the onslaught of blows and attempting to deface it even then. 

If he broke it they would have nothing to use against Jace, he thought desperately, if he broke their bond this would all be over, at least for one of them. Alec was ready to give up his parabatai bond for this, and the only reason he didn’t finish it then was the same one that had him reaching for it in the first place, _Jace_. 

His parabatai’s strength washed over him along with his conscience, the power of the runes on his golden skin seeping into Alec’s spent muscles and pushing into _fighting_. Someone reached for his arm and Alec fought back with a punch that was all Jace, from the technique to the surge of power behind it. He fought back, but he couldn’t do it for long, not even with Jace’s help. 

One of the grunts stumbled back, but the remaining two came at him with a vengeance, even as Alec kicked at their legs and felt one of his ankles breaking in a retaliating blow. They might have orders not to kill him, but he could sense the men there wanted it, the sentiment made itself clear in every strike. The only reason they didn’t finish him was Valentine, his cold voice echoing inside the small room as a comm came to life. 

_“That’s enough boys,”_ he order disinterestedly. 

Another kick, aimed at the wound over his shattered ribs, and it was _over_. They were pulling back, walking out, and Alec couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe in _relief_. His whole body felt like a living bruise, broken, bleeding… Alec doubted an Iratze could heal this, and he wouldn’t even be granted as much. 

A pained cough rattled him as the door to the room was shut close, blood spurting from his lips along with a groan. _I’m sorry,_ he though viciously as Jace’s worry and pain still mingled along his own blackening thoughts, _sorry you’re feeling this_.

Darkness blinked before his eyes, one of them already swelling shut, and for once Alec welcomed it. Oblivion felt like a far better alternative to his current reality.  

* * *

His father released him with a noise of disgust and Jace’s head dropped to the floor, forehead touching painted steel as he tried to identify where _he_ began and Alec _ended_. The pain was excruciating, _mundane_ , and there were no strength runes to fortify his parabatai’s body, so starkly in contrast with the rune-augmented onslaught of blows he’d just received.

“ _Father_ ,” Jace gasped, and his eyes were wet as he tried again, ignoring the boot digging into his back. “ _Please, I can feel him dying. You have the proof you wanted. He needs help, he needs_ healing _, please–_ ”

There was a shift in Valentine’s features and he nodded once, opening his mouth to utter what Jace was certain to be an _acquiescence_ , but before he could verbalize the command, a distant shudder ripped through the hull, the entire hallway shaking with what seemed to be some sort of _impact_. 

_Had they hit something?_

But Jace had no breath to ask before the radio in Valentine’s hand was crackling to life, static spitting through as the first mate reported a disturbance on deck. 

His father’s face grew shuttered then, completely focused on this latest task as Jace realized with dawning horror that his parabatai had been _forgotten_ in the space of an eye blink.

“ _No, wait. Don’t–_ ” But his desperate cries were ignored as Valentine snapped orders at his men, dragging him back to his room almost as an _afterthought_. Jace fought, _of course he did_ , but there were too many of them and the hull shuddered again as Auguste slammed a fist in his gut, slowing him just long enough so that they could slam the door in his face. 

Jace hammered his fists against it, shouting for his father to come back, but from the sound of receding footsteps, Valentine and his entourage had already taken off at a _run_. 

_An attack?_

But Jace couldn’t spare another thought for it, his single-minded purpose only focused on one person: _Alec_.

_He could feel him_ , the thread of his _life_ , the energy of their bond pulsing weakly between them. Jace closed his eyes, desperately trying to wrangle the chaos of his mind. 

_Alec,_ he thought. _Please, parabatai. Hold on for me. I’m coming_. And with that, he conjured a memory of the first iratze Alec had ever drawn on him as his parabatai, the first strength rune that Jace had drawn on _him_ , imagining the feel of its power and energy flowing through his veins. 

_Nephilim_. He had no idea if it worked, no idea if he had succeeded in alleviating any of his parabatai’s pain, but it would have to do until Jace managed to get to him. 

The hull had stopped its shuddering but he could hear the sound of explosions in the distance, and Jace drew back, getting as much distance from the door as he could in his tiny cabin. He had no weapons here aside from his own body, and no stele with which to refresh his runes. But he could still feel the remnants of adrenaline, the bitterness of Alec’s distress resting on his tongue, and Jace threw himself at the metal of the door as hard as he could, his shoulder protesting the abuse with every impact. _Once, twice_ , and his arm was a solid bruise by the _fifth_ time, but the hinges were loose by then, he could feel the _give_ every time he collided with it, and by the sixth time, it fell forward with a loud clang, depositing Jace onto the hard floor with a crash.

“ _Jace!_ ”

That was _Clary’s_ voice, _inexplicably so_ , and he looked up in time to see her rush down the hall towards him, Isabelle’s whip snapping at her heels. 

“ _We found you,_ ” she cried, but no sooner had she reached him, than Jace was already off running in the opposite direction, not bothering to waste time on pleasantries as she had no choice but to _follow_.

“ _Alec_ ,” was all he said, and by then Isabelle had caught up to them, the three of them skidding down the impossible length of the Morning Star as Jace led them to where his parabatai was _held_.

There was only one guard stationed outside his bunk, and his eyes widened almost comically before Isabelle’s whip took his feet out from under him, Clary delivering a rather stunning spin kick (apparently she’d been _training_ ), and cleanly knocking him out.

But Jace had no mind for any of it. He was already lifting the steel bar from the door, barking at his sisters for a _stele, now_ , even as he shoved open the door and stepped inside. 

The smell of blood was heavy in the dim cabin, and he saw _exactly_ what he knew he’d see. There was a soft cry behind him as Clary stepped forward, and suddenly Isabelle’s stele was in his hand as Jace knelt beside his parabatai, trying not to aggravate his injuries further as he cradled his head in his lap, making soft, shushing noises in the back of his throat.

“ _Alec, I’m here,_ ” he said, and there was no time for finesse as he drew an _iratze_  across Alec’s bloody bicep– the closest bit of free space that Jace could reach. “ _Can you hear me? I’m here and Izzy and Clary are here and we’re going to get you out_.” A mendelin was next, drawn crooked and upside down as Jace pushed his sleeve up further, trying not to panic at the damage he saw.

“I can get him stable enough to move without killing him, but he needs _help_ ,” Jace said tersely. “Our runes won’t hold him for long.”

“ _Magnus is here_ ,” Clary said. She’d taken a knee beside him as Isabelle hovered in the doorway, keeping a lookout. “But he’s our distraction topside. We need to get to the rendezvous point on the far side of the deck so he can portal us out.”

“And we have less than five minutes to get there,” Isabelle put in, her mouth a grim line. She stepped into the room, cradling Alec’s face. “ _Big brother, can you hear me?_ ”

Jace could feel the runes working, but the damage was so extensive that he wasn’t certain how much they’d _help_. He found space on Alec’s other arm and drew an amissio, keeping the firm contact between their minds even as he did so. 

“ _I’ll carry him out_ ,” Jace said. “ _If you can clear the way._ ” He lifted his shirt to get to his own strength rune, activating it with a pass of the stele before getting up, hoisting his parabatai in his arms as gently as he could.

Isabelle nodded, her eyes darkening as she tore them away from the bloody mess that was the eldest Lightwood.

“ _Stay close._ ”

* * *

Oblivion was mostly welcomed, but something kept Alec from fully embracing it, a lingering presence that tugged at his conscience and anchored him into the present while everything else threatened to turn black. _Jace_. It almost felt as if his parabatai was standing right there with him and, no matter the cost to himself, his request to hold on wasn’t something Alec could choose to ignore. 

It was Jace’s conscience that tethered him into awareness as darkness threatened to take over, his thoughts a golden beacon Alec all but clung to breath after shuddering breath. All through it his chest felt as if it were on fire, bones collapsed over far too fragile lungs bringing blood to his lips after a painful cough. The taste didn’t even register at this point. 

Spots danced over his clouded vision, the urge to close his eyes nearly overwhelming. Alec felt like he would see Jace there if he did, but he also feared that if he did so there would be nothing else left to see.

_I’m trying,_ he thought brokenly, _I’m trying but I can’t_ \- The warmth came almost as an answer, like the comforting burn of a rune traced on skin only from the inside out. The spots weren’t registered, the memories of it not his own, but somehow Alec _knew_. 

In what could only be a moment of madness he saw himself through the eyes of his parabatai, young and whole like he seldom felt then, gingerly holding his shirt up and wincing as the stele first touched his skin. Jace’s fingers burned down the lines of a strength rune and Alec swore he _felt it_ right then, in the present. Gingerly his fingers moved down over the spot, there was no warmth there, no real rune, but somehow it felt comforting all the same, almost enough to buy him a little more time. 

From then on Alec wavered, curled inwards into himself and feeling a growing puddle take shape underneath his frame. The fact he couldn’t tell where he was bleeding from was telling enough on its own, the pain so spread out the hunter could hardly identify a spot there wasn’t wounded. For all the times he had been injured before - all the cuts and holes and broken bones - Alec had never stood through it without a single rune etched into his skin. He had never felt _mortal_.

Now it would seem mortal was all he was, his constitution nothing if not mundane, the glimmering exception being Jace, even as his frantic presence seemed further and further away after each breath Alec took the pain of pulling in. 

It felt completely pointless to hope he would come, that Valentine would somehow be persuaded to allow him to- Simply imagining the price such a gift could amount to was enough for Alec to wish that he would not do so at all. At the same time he was nothing if not human as well and that part of him, that part of him did _hope_ , fueled by Jace’s unwavering determination as much as it was by his panic. 

Outside there were faint sounds, a shaking Alec couldn’t tell if it came from the ship or himself, the noises so distant he couldn’t tell them apart at all, not until the door was crashing open and _that voice_ , that he would recognize anywhere. 

_Jace_. He tried calling, but nothing more than a pained groan left his lips, the sound heightened as he was moved even though Alec could hardly care for that. Jace was there, holding him, tearing through his sleeve… It didn’t matter, nothing more felt like it did. If he let go now, if this turned out to be the last thing he ever saw, Alec would be glad it was him. 

Whatever space was left on his chest filled with warmth, a stream of care and comfort running through his thoughts so poignantly the burn of the runes on his skin was hardly felt. Alec wondered if Jace could feel it too then, if he knew in this one moment exactly how much Alec loved him.

They were talking, but Alec couldn’t make the words apart. Ever so slowly the runes took effect over his skin, calling upon the dormant power within his blood. After over a month of inactivity it took time, the angelic energy burning as it surfaced. It make little different in the full hurt that his bod was composed off, but at least it was a different pain- At least it wasn’t more of the same. 

Isabelle’s face came into focus and Alec was sure that he had gone mad. _“Izzy,”_ he whispered, his chest heaving at the effort. Was his sister really there? Now, of all times? It felt impossible, like only hallucinations could be, but there were many worse things for his mind to show him than his parabatai and his sister, so Alec clung to the idea that they were real. 

The burst of pain as Jace lifted him upon his arms felt only too real, jostling, and Alec couldn’t help a pained whimper, blindly reaching and settling his bloody fingers on the fabric of Jace’s jacket. He had no strength to pull himself close, or to really hold on at all, but his hands remained there, his face pressed to the cradle of Jace’s shoulder as he felt them starting to move. 

Again his conscious wavered at the nauseating pace, the slightest of movements bringing more blood to his lips and down his chin, smearing the front of Jace’s shirt. He had no idea of where they were going, who they were going to find, but Jace’s thoughts felt sure, as hopeful as they were desperate, and Alec clung to that the same way he held on to Jace: meekly, but with everything he had. 

* * *

It seemed like it took forever to get to the rendezvous point, with Jace lagging behind as Isabelle and Clary fought their way through the guards they encountered. The entire ship was on red alert and while they didn’t seem to know exactly where the group was, there were enough of them aboard that it made it impossible to sneak past without engaging a few.

Jace wanted to help but it would’ve meant putting his parabatai down, and there was no way that was going to happen. _Not ever again_.

To his sisters’ credit, they all made it to the deck in one piece, just in time to see a rather spectacular burst of power that could only have come from Magnus. It sent a shockwave rippling across the starboard bow, and Jace’s teeth rattled even though they were crouched behind a set of crates portside.

“That’s the signal,” Clary said tersely, and she got up, her seraph dagger clutched in hand. “ _Be ready to run._ ”

A portal blinked into existence not six feet away, and Magnus stepped out looking none the worse for wear. Jace had never been so glad to see him in his life.

“ _Now,_ ” Isabelle said, and she brandished her whip as they all made for the purple light. From the corner of his eye, Jace could see that some of Valentine’s men had spotted them and were heading towards them, but the Morning Star was vast and there was no way they would make it in time.

Clary was already through and Jace threw himself in after her, tightening his arms around his parabatai as he felt the familiar tug of the portal in his _core_.

_Home_. His boots alighted on the familiar marble of the Institute floor, Jace sagging to his knees as Isabelle passed him. The warlock was last, going through the portal as he snapped his painted fingers, shutting it with a decisive nod.

Jace could feel Alec’s fingers clinging to his collar, the steady pulse of his emotions overlaying the constant pain that permeated through his form. _Hold on_ , he thought at him. _Just a little bit more_.

“ _Magnus_ ,” he said, and the gaze he turned to the warlock was naked and unfettered. Whatever their differences in the past, they had to put them aside for now. “ _He needs help._ ”

To his credit, Bane didn’t even argue. He followed their group to the infirmary without question, making no comment regarding payment as Jace deposited Alec onto the cot as carefully as he could. 

“ _What happened?_ ” Isabelle asked, finally voicing the question they all wanted to ask.

“ _Valentine,_ ” was all Jace said, and he took his place at Alec’s side while Magnus stayed on the other, his hands already glowing with golden power. 

There was blood everywhere and Jace’s hands were slick from the contact, but he held onto his parabatai’s hand with everything he had. His healing runes had helped but the damage was too extensive; he’d been able to feel Alec slipping throughout the entire run to the portal, all too mortal in his thoughts.

Jace closed his eyes, concentrating on the thought of him and the feel of their bond, pouring whatever strength he had left through the contact. 

_Stay with me, parabatai_ , he thought bleakly. _Please. I can’t lose you now._

* * *

Alec had been mostly unaware of their surroundings, knowing they were moving only because it jostled his body in Jace’s arms, the escaping whimpers so low they were inaudible in that setting. Holding on was Alec could do by then, his hands meek on the blonde’s jacket, his awareness clinging to Jace’s resolve in order to keep him there. 

_Hold on_ , his parabatai had asked him, and Alec poured whatever he had left ( and mostly borrowed strength at that ) in doing just so, using Jace’s aura as a guiding beacon and his presence as an anchor in order not to slip away. 

The run had been the worst, the purple portal nothing besides a blemish in Alec’s tunneled and faded vision. Jace held on to him all the harder as he rushed towards it and Alec’s breath, whatever little he had left of it, was taken away before they even made it into the magical haze. 

When they crossed, for a single moment, he was _gone,_ too unaware to have thought of the Institute, too _lost_. But Jace was there, he was crossing into the portal and Alec found himself inexorably tethered to his parabatai, unable not to follow him even in the darkness of hours, when his mind and soul were all but ready to leave him. _Jace_ , he thought longingly, and doing so was the same as thinking of home, enough so that both of them made it to the other side. 

Alec felt like he had nothing left to give then, no energy or room available to even feel relief. Whatever was keeping him present, keeping his hands from going lax and his eyes from closing came from Jace, who hadn’t let go of his body for a single moment same as he didn’t let go of their bond. In his state, Magnus’ magic felt like nothing sort of a balm, mercifully numbing and weighting on Alec’s chest in a whole different way from the previous pain. _Healing_.

Jace held him through that as well, their palms pressed flat and his energy all but poured into Alec, just like Magnus’ magic and equally as effective. The warlock might be healing his body, but right then Jace was the sworn keeper of his soul pleading for Alec to stay with him. 

_Always_ , he thought warmly, his fingers tightening momentarily and weakly into a returned hold. 

All around him there were voices, Isabelle, Magnus, Clary and even Jace… Alec listened to them like he had cotton in his ears, his one open eyed giving up on the white spots that danced over his vision and closing into a merciful darkness. Inside him blood and bones were being restored and whatever energy he had siphoned was poured into the process, at last taking his conscience away into a dreamless sleep.

His expression was as peaceful as it was possible for a broken face, the bruises already fading to a yellowing purple even though the smears of blood remained. Izzy was careful as she reached for it, running her fingers through her brother’s hair and pushing the raven locks away from his closed eyes. 

“It’s okay big brother,” she spoke quietly, a sad and yet fond smile to her lips, “You’re home now.” Unbidden her dark eyes searched for Jace, his position unmoved at the other side of the bed, _“You both are.”_  

* * *

It was over twenty-four hours before Alec finally stirred again, his slumber deep and unfettered as Jace watched over him. He wouldn’t leave his side regardless of what his sisters urged, choosing instead to use the infirmary facilities when he cleaned himself up, washing away the dried blood and the soot of the ship. Clary brought him a change of clothes and some food at some point, making no comment on the fact that Jace had made a space for himself at Alec’s bedside, his head pillowed on his folded arms as he dozed.

He couldn’t even think of what his parabatai had been through, knowing full well that he wouldn’t have had to endure any of it if he’d just _stayed home_. Now that they were safely back in the Institute, Jace could admit it, could admit that the presence that had saved his own life and had kept his sanity could very well have ruined Alec irreparably, and the guilt of it only made him hold on to his parabatai _tighter_.

In the quieter moments, after Magnus had retired and his sisters had gone to bed, it was difficult not to think about the intimacy that had been forced upon them. His eyes would drift to Alec’s sleeping features and the memory of how they’d _touched_  would cross his mind, flashes of it coming to him unbidden.

_Did he regret it?_  Even after _everything_ – the consequences it had on their bond, the agony of the beating Alec had received– Jace couldn’t bring himself to be so.

It had changed something inside of him and there was no coming back from it, as if it had marked his heart and soul with a _before_ and _after_ , and Jace could scarcely remember what he was like before he knew that he could love Alec in that way.

_Had he really changed that much?_ But deep down, he knew that he _had_. He cradled Alec’s hand in both of his before drawing it up, pressing a kiss against the center of his palm. “ _I love you,_ ” he said softly. “ _Heal_ , parabatai. _Please._ ”

The hour had grown late by the time he felt Alec stir, and by then, Jace had migrated from the chair to the bed. The infirmary was otherwise deserted and the cot was probably too small for two grown men, but somehow he managed to squeeze himself in between Alec and the wall, his head pillowed on his parabatai’s shoulder.

His hand was splayed above Alec’s chest, the telltale thump of his heart betraying his consciousness. Jace sat up, extricating himself as gently as he could as he peered into his face.

_“Alec?”_ he said softly.  _“Are you awake?”_

* * *

For the longest time there was only darkness. Addled by magic and the power of healing runes Alec’s sleep was deep and untroubled, his expression peaceful beneath the fading bruises and healing wounds. Far from disturbing his rest, Jace’s presence actually helped. _Felt_ more than just known, his aura was a comfort Alec wasn’t even aware he was clinging to in his slumber. 

Like at the ship, in his moment of desperation, Jace was the steady anchor that kept him in place and Alec’s very soul held on to it. Around them the world moved along, their parents and sisters coming and going as Alec remained asleep and Jace refused to leave his side. 

It was a whole day before he so much as stirred, slowly brought to conscience by the awareness of a dull ache that extended all through his body. Alec wasn’t in pain, Magnus’ magic had made sure of that, but whatever energy he’d had ( along with whatever Jace had borrowed him ) had been poured into healing and so, even after a day, his body remained exhausted. 

So the ache was the first thing he became aware of, even before he was fully awake, and then there was _Jace_. His presence was as strong as ever, the awareness of him similar to that Alec would have of a limb of his own, something he could place without even opening his eyes and that now laid comfortably at his side, a hand rested heavily over his heart that treacherously thumped for attention under the realization. 

He cursed it as it got Jace to pull away, the absence of his warmth leaving him barren.

Ever so slowly his hazel eyes blinked open, thankful for the near darkness of the room as it took a while for them to focus- All he saw then was Jace, everything behind his parabatai blurred out of focus as Alec took in his creased brows and worried expression with a frown of his own. 

_“Hey,”_ he spoke quietly, his voice cracking at the single word as he realized his throat to be as dry as parchment. 

_I’m okay_ , he meant to assure Jace, but the sentence turned into a cough and Alec felt alarmingly out of sorts with it, blindly reaching for his bedside where he _knew_ a cup of water would be waiting for him. _His bedside. The infirmary_ … His memories were a blurry mess, but slowly and surely he took more and more in, seeing the Institute was what hid behind Jace’s worried form.

_They were home_ , Alec realized with a start, nearly dropping the cup altogether. After more than a month aboard hell, after _everything_ , Jace had brought him **HOME**.

Moisture gathered at his eyes, the water forgotten as he fell back into his pillow and blinked up at his parabatai, a small smile to his lips that slowly broke into a wider grin. Whatever had happened with them, the hurt, the intimacy and all the unspeakable things Valentine had forced Jace into, all of it was forgotten for a moment as his chest soared with sudden lightness. 

_“I told you it’d be over.”_

* * *

Jace let out a breathless laugh, the tightening in his chest finally easing for the first time since he’d found out that Valentine was his father. He bowed his head, touching his forehead to Alec’s as he curled against his side once more. 

“ _You did_ ,” he said. “And you were _right_. Izzy and the others came for us and got us home. It’s– _it’s finally over._ ” There was a lump in his throat that he was having trouble swallowing around, the hand that was loosely gripping Alec’s collar tightening imperceptibly.

They needed to talk about what had happened, Jace knew that, but for now the relief that was surging through him ( _through them both_ ) was all he could think about, and he allowed himself the small moment of respite in spite of himself.

Alec’s face was bare inches away and Jace realized that he could see the flecks of color in his eyes from this distance, the atmosphere between them suddenly _shifting_ as he was reminded of what had transpired on the _ship_. His hand was cupping his parabatai’s jaw, fingertips splayed against the high point of his cheek, and his breath caught as he thought: _Oh_.

It was too easy to bridge the gap between them, too easy to capture Alec’s mouth in a _kiss_ – soft and fitted– and though it barely lasted any time at all, it still felt as _right_ as it ever had before. 

When Jace drew back, however, there was only _surprise_ reflected in his parabatai’s eyes, confusion easily read across his features. Not quite what Jace had expected, all things considered, and his brows drew together as he regarded him, realizing that he had, perhaps, erroneously delayed their _talk_. 

But Jace was still propped over Alec and they were still far too close to one another, his thoughts pressing together in the confines of his mind. He’d never been good at _talking_ – hell, if he was honest, neither was Alec, really– but he bit his lip regardless, taking a breath.

“ _Alec, I think we–_ ”

But the rest of his words were swallowed by the door to the infirmary creaking open, and it was only his reflexes that allowed Jace to arrange himself in a less compromising position, pushing himself up into a sitting position just as Isabelle came into view. 

“You’re awake,” she said, and her dark eyes flickered as she noted that Jace was on the cot next to Alec, though she made no outward mention of it. She moved to his bedside as Jace hopped down, and he wrapped a hand loosely around Alec’s wrist and squeezed gently before letting go.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” he said. “If you need me, just yell.”

He’d spied a familiar head of hair hovering outside the door, and he figured that Clary didn’t want to intrude on a family moment. She was still family to _him_ , though, and Isabelle nodded at him as he quietly slipped outside.

* * *

Their happiness was contagious, relief flooding through the both of them and coming to life in the sound of Jace’s laughter. It felt like a lifetime since Alec last heard his parabatai laugh like that and, right then, it eased the ache in his chest in a way no healing magic ever would.

Jace’s smile felt blinding, returned by Alec’s unwavering grin, and their foreheads were pressed together in a moment of complicity that nothing else could amount to. It felt like they were young again, like the time before they became parabatai and Jace’s reserve had given in under Alec’s insistence; like the nights shared in each other’s company when a witchlight and Alec’s company was all it took to keep Jace’s nightmares at bay.

They had made it out of a living nightmare and, like this, Alec could almost believe his presence alone would be enough once more. Things were different now, everything was bound to be different, but his hazy thoughts ignored the fact for now and, even in spite of that, Alec was sure that they could make it. 

He had loved Jace for so long, wrong and tainted as it was, knowing him as intimately as he did now would hurt, but Alec could push through it. Given time, he was confident everything could almost go back to how it was before, if only Jace could look through what had happened between them, and right then, Alec figured he didn’t care all that much.

Their shared joy surpassed any lingering doubts and the feeling lingered as the moment stretched between them, Jace’s warm fingers sprawled over Alec’s cheek and their eyes locked together. There was a gleam in Jace’s mismatched gaze, a molten heat that reminded Alec of the only time his parabatai had ever looked at him like that before and it happened right before they _kissed_.

It was as if the realization conjured the action, Jace’s lips soft and tender against his own slack ones, the careful kiss met by Alec’s unguarded shock. They were home, alone at the infirmary of the New York Institute and Jace had kissed him.

It felt so good Alec wanted to cry, a dozen questions crowding at the tip of his tongue all at once and making it so none could come out. Without a doubt the strongest of them was: _why?_ And Alec almost gave voice to it, beaten by Jace’s own start. _I think-_  

_What?_ He wanted to scream, but the door gave in under the softest pressure and just like that Jace was gone, the warmth of his presence pulling away along with his body, the comfort of him withdrawn even though he still stood _right there_. Their hearts had been beating in sync and Alec only noticed it now that it had stopped, Jace’s pulse speeding up as Isabelle made her way towards them. 

Confused as he was, Alec couldn’t bring himself to resent his sister’s presence, a smaller, thought equally honest, smile stretching his lips as she came to stand at his bedside and Jace took his leave. 

Each step his parabatai took that lead him away from Alec felt like a physical thing, a rope pulled taught up until the moment the blonde was fully out of his sight and then, only then, Alec managed to focus on Isabelle’s warm brown eyes. 

“You had us all worried,” she started, the light tone making a poor work of covering up the concern Alec could see etched upon her features. Without a second thought he moved himself closer to the wall, occupying the space Jace had been laying at in order to give Izzy some space to climb into the small cot along with him, his arm already raised so her smaller frame could fit right in. 

_“I know… ”_ he whispered back, his face hidden in the dark locks of her hair, rough voice muffled as he pressed a kiss to her temple, “and I’m sorry.”

* * *

The embrace that Jace shared with Clary was so tight that it almost took his breath away, and he felt her silken hair against his cheek and knew that he was _home_. 

In the weeks they’d been apart, Jace could feel that something had changed between them, and while the immediate kinship that he’d felt for her was _immutable_ , the look he saw in her eyes felt so  _different_. 

Had she changed? Had _he_? It was impossible to go through what had happened aboard the Morning Star and remain unmarred, but in his heart of hearts, Jace wasn’t certain that that was the cause of it.

“ _You came for us,_ ” he said finally, and Clary nodded, tears in her emerald eyes.

“My mom is awake,” she said, and he didn’t miss the catch in her tone. “We have a lot to talk about.”

And they _did._  

Jace wasn’t certain how long they stood there, hands clasped and heads bowed together like children, but by the time it was over, tears had spilled and Jace was brushing at the high point of Clary’s cheek, thumbing at the moisture. 

His mind was spinning with a thousand questions, the whiplash of her revelations– _you’re not my brother_ – making him dizzy.

“But what does this mean for _us_?” he asked, and the memory of her mouth on his– of the heady contact they’d fallen into during the days before he’d left– came to him unbidden. It had made him feel sick when he’d thought they were siblings, bile rising in his throat whenever Clary looked at him because then, _even then,_  he’d still wanted her.

_But now?_

“What do you _want_ it to mean?” Clary asked, and she was equally hesitant, her white hands twisting in his, twining their fingers. “I can’t imagine what _Valentine_ – What you went through while you were with him… But just know that I’m here for you, Jace. I wouldn’t have my mom back without you, and… Seriously. Whatever you need _,_ I’m here for you.”

It was hardly a ringing endorsement to pick up where they’d left off, but Jace couldn’t deny the relief that flooded through him at her words. She _wasn’t_ his sister; the feelings he’d had for her weren’t _wrong_. 

Wordlessly, he pulled Clary into his arms. Her body was slender and her face– _once upon a time so eagerly tilted up to his_ – found its way to rest on his shoulder instead. The lump in his throat had nothing to do with disappointment over the avoided kiss, but rather the fact that he was missing a _solidity_ in her frame, that his heart was pounding over someone _else_ ,

Surprisingly, it was Clary who pulled away first, her gaze darting over his shoulder down the hall, but when Jace turned to look, there was no one there. 

“ _I should go_ ,” she said. “I’ll come by again tomorrow if Alec is feeling better. Maybe… maybe I can say _hi_.”

She squeezed his hand once more and stepped away, and Jace watched until she rounded the corner at the end of the hall before returning to Alec’s bedside. Isabelle was perched on the side of his bed and she stood when she saw Jace, giving him a searching look. He had no doubt that Clary had kept her updated on the tangled web of their no-longer-familial relationship, and his eyes fell on his parabatai, chest tightening at the sight.

“Clary had to go,” he said. “But she’ll come by again tomorrow if you’re up for company.” 

* * *

For an unmeasurable stretch of time they were silent, brother and sister immersed in the comfort and solace of each other’s presence. Alec knew Isabelle had questions for him, he could feel it in the tense way she held herself and on the too-tight grip she kept on his shirt. Whatever Jace had said while he had been unconscious, _if_ he had said anything at all that was, it clearly hadn’t been enough. 

It felt like a long time, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before Isabelle started to squirm, twisting her head and resting it on the slope of Alec’s shoulder, poised to look up at him like this. 

“What happened to you in that ship?” she finally asked, a hesitancy that didn’t suited her in the slightest coloring her tone. “When we found Jace he looked desperate, kicking down a metal door, and then he lead us to you…” There was a pause, pregnant with the gravity of the situation as Alec could only imagine how they would have found him, beaten blue and laying on a puddle of his own blood. Alec didn’t remember much of it, but that alone was already telling enough of the state he had been in.  _“I thought you were dead,”_ Izzy confessed. 

Alec’s grip tightened, pulling his sister even closer and ignoring the discomfort it brought to his healing ribs. Jace might have felt his pain, but his sister hurt on her own and whatever comfort Alec had to offer was hers now. He shushed her gently, kissing her hair once more and hoping his very presence was enough to reassure Izzy.

_“I’m here now,”_ he told her pointlessly, “I’m okay.”

It wasn’t much, or even wholly true, but it was what he had to offer. What happened between him and Jace aboard the Morning Star was still too new, too fresh of a thing for Alec to confide even on his sister. He didn’t fully understand it himself, not with the warmth of Jace’s kiss still lingering on his lips and so many questions floating through his mind, but whatever it was they would have to talk about it, he and Jace. Once they did, then Alec would think about what to do, but for now he remained silent and allowed Izzy to continue. 

She spoke of Magnus, measuring his reaction to the mention of the High Warlock’s name and frowning at whatever result she found. It was true, they were lucky he had been a part of the rescuing party or Alec might have not made it. He was thankful for it, truly grateful, but anything beyond that lead inevitably to thoughts of his conversation with Jace on the ship and just like that Izzy lost him again. 

_“…Jocelyn says there’s no way Jace is her son.”_ And just like that he was back, blinking into the moment and ignoring Isabelle’s smirk as he thought back to what she had just said and paid attention to the reprisal. 

Jocelyn Fairchild had awakened in their absence and the woman assured Clary that Jace simply could not be Jonathan Christopher, his unique eyes a giveaway no mother would be able to _forget_. Jace wasn’t her son, wasn’t Clary’s brother… 

Even thought he didn’t have him to begin with it felt like losing him all over again, something in Alec’s chest squeezing tightly at the thought of that confusing kiss and whatever misplaced hope it might have stood for. Jace could have Clary, the girl he wanted ( the girl he had been _falling in love_ with ), Alec wouldn’t keep him from it with the same vengeance he wouldn’t keep him from happiness, regardless of the cost to himself. 

The new knowledge had led a stormy expression to his face that was still there by the time Jace came back into the room. As much as his parabatai’s presence loosened the strain upon their bond it tightened Alec’s chest to simply look at him, seeing in one person everything he loved and simply could not have. For the first time since he had awoken Alec found himself wanting to be left alone, the simple mention of Clary’s name coming from Jace feeling like the prick of a needle as it hadn’t felt in so long.

_“Maybe tomorrow,”_ he agreed hollowly, hoping that alone could be enough for now. His eyes avoided Jace’s gaze, and his soul hurt just from wishing his parabatai away. 

_Please_ , Alec thought meekly, the words confined to the seclusion of a mind that was no longer just his own, _I can’t do this right now_.  

* * *

_Alec was upset._

Jace didn’t need their bond to be able to discern this, his brows furrowing as he realized the mood in the room had _shifted_ in his absence. “ _Izzy– can you give us a minute?_ ” he asked, giving her an apologetic look as he stepped closer to his parabatai’s bedside. 

The news about Clary was still too new, _too fresh_ , and he put it aside so he could focus on what he _was_  certain of, the parabatai bond that hummed so steadily between them. It was unlike anything that they’d ever experienced before, the steady power between them only growing stronger with each day that passed.

Isabelle had slipped out but Jace barely noticed; he’d reached out to take Alec’s hands, perching on the edge of his bed as he looked down at him. He’d heard his _plea_ as clearly as if he’d said it out loud, _his wish to be left alone_ , but Alec had to know that that couldn’t _happen_.

“ _Look at me_ ,” Jace urged, and it was an echo of what he’d said on the _ship_ , no less urgent in its _request_  but for a far different reason. 

“ _Izzy told you._ ” It wasn’t a question. “I’m sorry that you had to find out that way, but you have to know– it doesn’t _change anything_  between us.” He didn’t think anything ever could, at this point. It was too big, _too powerful_ , and the connection that he’d felt towards Clary felt _innocent_ now by comparison.

“ _You feel it too, don’t you?_ ” he asked, and already the _proximity_ was telling, the simple touch of their hands, the nearness of his parabatai evoking far more than he’d felt when Clary had embraced him. It was _too easy_ to lean forward, to bridge the handful of inches that somehow still separated them and claim Alec’s mouth in a kiss, their fingers still interlaced as Jace pressed forward, the scent and taste and feel of him permeating his very _core_.

So intent was Jace upon his parabatai that he didn’t register the creak of the door swinging open, the brisk click of familiar heels followed by a heavier tread.

_“Jace.”_

_It was Maryse’s voice_ , shocked and horrified, and Jace jerked back as if burned, half-rising to his feet but somehow still unable to let go of Alec’s hands. He had no excuse for this, nothing at all, and for a brief eternity the four Lightwoods were as if in a frozen tableau, Maryse’s dark eyes sweeping over them both.

Her expression was unreadable save for the shock it held, but ultimately it was still _she_ who broke the silence first. “ _Jace_ ,” Maryse said. “ _Come here._ ”

“Maryse, I don’t–”

“ _Now._ ” Robert’s voice was equally urgent, and Jace pulled away with no small measure of reluctance. The moment between he and Alec had _broken_ , the fervor that he’d felt dissipating when their contact diminished. 

“You’re needed in debriefing,” Maryse said, and she touched his forearm, dark eyes falling on her eldest son before flickering away.  _“Come away.”_

Robert stayed behind, and the silent exchange he shared with his wife was unfathomable. All Jace could do was cast a helpless glance at Alec– _I’ll be back as soon as I can_ – and then Maryse was ushering him away.

* * *

Alec tried to pull his hand back, but Jace was nothing if not persistent and his eyes were somehow even more commandeering than his tone. _Look at me_ , he pleaded, and Alec was helpless not to do it, reminded of the last time had asked him that and the _circumstances_ of it.

Things were so very different now, back in the safety of the Institute and the normalcy of their lives, and yet Jace’s mismatched blue eyes were equally mesmerizing, their scrutinizing look hard to ignore. With the bond between them it felt like Jace could see every feeling reflected into Alec’s face, every thought he was trying so hard to ignore right then. 

When he spoke, it became clear that Alec had been right about that, thought he hadn’t been expecting those words. _It doesn’t change anything between us_. His fingers twitched within Jace’s grasp, a spark of hope Alec simply couldn’t repress igniting the move. 

He did feel it, warmth tugging at his very core, drawing him towards Jace inexorably. It was not the first time Alec felt like this, hardly the first time he felt a pull towards Jace, but it was the first time he caved to it outside the metal walls of the Morning Star. 

_“Yes,”_ he whispered, the word spoken into Jace’s lips given how close his parabatai was already, _“I can feel it.”_

It was the first time he kissed him, eyes closed against the onslaught of feelings that came with the meeting of their lips and all but _melting_ into it. 

Just as it had been on the ship, the world around them faded to nothing, leaving Jace and Alec along in their little bubble, careless and inconsequential, up until the moment it burst under the sound of his mother’s _voice_.

Alec pulled away the same way Jace did, shocked and wide eyed, their reaction all but telegraphing guilt same as their persisting hand-holding. Jace wouldn’t let go of his fingers and Alec, for once, already doomed and fated, held on to him just as hard.

His neck was flushed under the scrutiny of their parents, embarrassment burning as Alec averted his eyes from his mother’s judging gaze. He wouldn’t slight her by lying, not after what she had witnessed, but he couldn’t talk either and it was just his luck he didn’t have to as Maryse seemed just as eager to get away from the Infirmary. 

As she left with Jace on her heels Alec was left alone with his father for what felt like the first time in so long, his hazel eyes focused on a particularly interesting spot on the white sheet that covered the lowered half of his body. Both men struggled for what to say until, at last, Robert broke the silent. 

_“Is this a comfort thing?”_ he asked, vaguely pointing between Alec and the spot where Jace had stood moments ago to illustrate what _this_ meant. “After what happened- We’d understand if you two wanted to be close.”

The words seemed to cost him, fumbled as they were, and Alec was as surprised as he was appreciative for the mere attempt at any sort of understanding. He never assumed he would get even that from his parents, but it was one thing to assume, and it was a whole other thing to watch your son being carried into the Institute kept alive only by the grace of a warlock’s magic and looking all but _dead_ otherwise.

For a moment, upon the rogue party’s return, Robert had really believed Alec was dead. His eldest son, gone without even knowing how proud he was of the man he had become, without knowing he was _loved_ \- This, whatever it was, was better than that, and Robert was willing to work with it, if only Alec would _explain_.

It wasn’t comfort, but Alec didn’t know how to even begin to explain, though he did _try_ , fumbling for his words as he attempted to gloss over their crime in a way that allowed his father to still be able to look at him, to _understand_.

_“It’s not Jace’s fault,”_ he assured him, concerned that they might see it that way as he was the one bearing the bruises.  _“_ Valentine threatened to kill me otherwise, he felt like he had no choice…” 

By the end of it Robert looked angrier than Alec ever remembered seeing him, tense as he stood rigidly beside the infirmary bed. He reached for Alec’s arm and the archer all but flinched at the touch, startled as his father’s gaze turned soft. 

“It’s not your fault either, _son._ ” Robert spoke surely, searching for Alec’s eyes and holding his stare. Whatever rage he felt was directed at Valentine and him alone, the urge to look for his wife and _discuss_ the matter burning within already. But he wouldn’t leave yet, not before Alec _knew_. “Whatever they made you do in there it’s on them, not you or Jace.” 

And Alec wanted to protest, he really did, but seeing his father’s earnest look all he did was nod, clenching his jaw against anything else as he settled back into his pillows. He did ask for one favor, just the one, so that his mind could be assuaged before his dad left him alone to finally rest: 

_“Make sure Jace is okay.”_

* * *

“ _Tell me that wasn’t what it looked like._ ” 

Maryse’s voice was about as upset as Jace had ever heard it, turning towards him as soon as she shut the door to her office. To his surprise, her features weren’t twisted in _anger_ but of _worry_ , the stern set of her brow furrowed in concern.

_“You know the law, Jace,”_ she said.  _“Whatever happened on that ship–”_

_“Was my fault.”_  he interrupted her. “Alec didn’t do anything, it was _me_.”

Maryse’s gaze didn’t falter, her expression urging him to elaborate as the only mother that he’d ever known stood before him in judgement. 

His words were halting at first, trying to leave out the sordid details of what they’d endured in his father’s captivity. But there were questions to be answered, questions pertaining to the extent of Alec’s injuries, of Valentine’s _experimentations_ , and soon enough Maryse had drawn the full story from him.

Jace couldn’t meet her eyes when he was done, his gaze fixed on the floor as he waited for her to _slap_ him, _to tell him to get out and never come back_. But the hand that touched his face was gentle, the eyes that looked upon him full of despair and rage but not directed at _him_.

_“It’s not your fault.”_  His breath caught at the words and he stood in shock as his mother embraced him, standing frozen for a moment before he wrapped his arms around her in turn.

“ _What Valentine did to you both– he’ll pay for it,_ ” Maryse said, and her words were hard and brittle, the cold anger of a mother who’d been pushed too far. 

When she pulled away, she held his face in her hands so she could look at him still. “ _What happened wasn’t your fault,_ ” she said again. “But you _know the law_. The Clave won’t forgive this, and you _cannot–must not–_  give yourselves away.”

“…what are you saying?” Jace asked, but Maryse’s expression said it _all_.

“You need to stay away from each other,” Maryse said. “ _For your own good._ I won’t have them exile my sons for a crime they had no choice in committing, but the Clave won’t see it that way. You have to–” Regret flickered across her features. “Whatever you’re feeling right now, _you have to keep it down._ You have to be _strong_.”

Her hold tightened. “Can you do that for yourselves?” she asked. “Can _you_ do it, for Alec’s sake?”

The very thought of staying away from his parabatai at this point was nearly _unconscionable_ , not after they’d become so irrevocably entangled. But Jace could see in his mother’s eyes that she only wanted what was _best for them_ , that she only wanted to keep them _safe_.

What else could he do but _nod?_

_“Yes.”_

 


	3. Philia

_“If you’re happy in a dream, does that count?”_  
                    ― ‘The God of Small Things’, Arundhati Roy

 

There was once a time when Jace had been afraid of his _dreams_. 

When he’d first come to live with the Lightwoods, his slumber had been plagued with memories twisted into _darkness_ , as if his mind had conjured his father’s murder and wanted him to relive it, _worsening_ the nightmare each time. He remembered, still, how he’d lain awake at night, staring into the darkened ceiling of his bedroom, trying to fight the exhaustion that forced his eyes to close, the inevitable cloud that swept across his mind and dragged him into _sleep_.

Even after he’d become accustomed to the New York Institute and had grown closer to the Lightwoods, his dreams had still held some semblance of _unease_. The darkness of the Circle would never truly leave him, his need for vengeance so encompassing that it hounded his subconscious, plaguing his slumber.

Now, though, his dreams were a  _different_ animal entirely.

He’d realized it during the first night he’d spent away from Alec, having left Maryse’s office with a heavy heart but firm resolve. His mother’s words had been _true_ ; she’d only been trying to look out for them both, and Jace knew that she had given him the task because she’d known he could handle it. There was so much that they didn’t know about the parabatai bond, so much that had been lost to myth and time. Maryse probably hadn’t known it would cause either of them this much pain to be apart, but even if she had… What could she have _done?_

 _No, this was for the best._  The distance, the _ache–_  Jace  _would_  bear it, because he couldn’t condemn Alec to a life of exile over something that had been _forced_ on them.

But while his days were plagued with doubt, at night, all of that _changed_. It was as if the control he strove for was wrested away as soon as sleep took him, their parabatai bond left to stretch between them unfettered. It was only in dreams that Jace found _peace_ , Alec’s steady presence a constant that never left him, the connection between them vast and infinite.

_The waking world was pale by comparison._

A knock on his door sounded as Jace finished strapping on the last of his gear, steeling himself as he strode to open it. He’d been expecting Clary but found Isabelle standing there instead, her hip cocked to the side as she nodded in greeting.

“Change of plans,” she said. “Clary’s taking Raj on your mission, and you can watch my six instead.” Her dark eyes challenged him to argue, and though Jace opened his mouth to do just that, she held up a hand. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Alec, and we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but it’s been a while since we spent time together. I worry about you too, okay? Come on this mission with me; it’ll be just like old times.”

Jace hesitated, then nodded. “Fine,” he said reluctantly. “You’re right. But I _don’t_ want to talk about it.”

“Suit yourself,” Isabelle replied, threading her arm through his as she led the way to the weapons room. “It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”

* * *

Jace didn’t come back from his conversation with their mother, not to the infirmary to see Alec and not _at all–_  Whatever Maryse had said to him it had cemented Jace’s resolve in a way none of Alec’s words had managed to, and thought Alec _understood_ the need for distance, understanding the reason for it didn’t it make it hurt any _less_. 

His parabatai’s absence was a physical thing, an emptiness Alec felt within his chest like a gaping wound and and ache that extended itself through their bond to wherever Jace was. It tugged at his very core, that invisible rope, at the same time that it wrapped around him and tightened through every second Alec refused it’s pull. 

A single day was all it took for him to be discharged from the infirmary and, after that, Alec mostly kept to his room. His orders were to _rest_ and the unspoken request was to keep his distance. Jace didn’t say anything about it, but he didn’t come to see him either and the message was loud and clear in the distance. But Alec knew what he was missing now and, as expected, it only made it all the worst.

He knew what kissing Jace would _feel_ like, knew the soft look in his eyes right before he did it, and, thought it was a fleeting experience, the memory of it was burned in Alec’s mind. At nightfall it was all he could think about, lying in his bed and sensing Jace so strongly it felt as it his parabatai was lying right beside him. At night their defenses fell, and for a moment the impermeable distance between them that consisted of nothing but a single _wall_ crumbled under the strength of their combined longing. 

It was the only time Alec felt at peace these days, Jace’s presence as vivid and strong as it had been back on the ship when he had been hurting and his parabatai had helped him through it. The hurt was of a different kind now, the soft blow of denial instead of the harsh strike of fists. Alec wondered _how long_ he could withstand this particular kind of torture; he wondered if Jace was hurting too. 

Mostly he was left alone with his thoughts, left alone in his room with the bright exception of Isabelle’s presence. His sister refused to leave him completely by himself, both physically and mentally, it simply wouldn’t do, so Izzy came to visit. 

At first she simply pushed him to get out of bed, then into the training room. It wasn’t the same as fighting with his parabatai, but Alec needed all the practice he could get _–_ He was _rusty._ Training with Isabelle helped, as did getting his bow and arrows back. It was a part of him he didn’t realize he’d been missing, but standing at the shooting ring firing restlessly at the targets Alec felt a little more like himself. 

Nearly two weeks after his return his sister finally convinced him to join her on the field again. Alec was preparing for that now, strapping his quiver over his shoulder and feeling oddly unused to the movement as he heard the tell-tale click of Izzy’s hills on the corridor followed by a noticeable wave of heat. 

 _“Did you get what you needed…?”_ he began, the words dying on his lips as he saw his parabatai trailing Isabelle into the room. 

Jace was geared up for a mission, clad in leather and leaving no doubt as to what Izzy had meant as she said she’d be getting them some _backup_. It was the first time Alec saw him in days and his lips thinned to a tight line as their eyes met briefly, hand curling at the handle of his bow before he fastened it to his back, forcing his attention back to the equipment on the table and urging himself not to give himself away. 

_“We should get going, pick up your weapons.”_

* * *

After so much time apart, the very _sight_ of Alec took Jace’s breath away. 

He had stopped by the door, feet planted even as as Isabelle brushed past him, his fingers closing on the frame as if trying to physically keep himself from going to his parabatai. Perhaps he _was_.

_“Isabelle, I don’t think–”_

But Alec’s voice cut across his, almost clinical in his command, and Jace was almost hurt at the detachment he could hear in his tone. _Almost,_ because their bond had changed almost as much as they had in their time aboard the Morning Star, and Jace knew what this was costing him, costing them _both_ , and the only thing more powerful than the cold in Alec’s voice was the longing in his _soul_.

“ _Fine._ ”

The self-imposed physical distance had helped curb their bond over the past week, but in such close quarters, Alec’s presence was impossible to _ignore_. Trying to act nonchalant was a study in futility, with Jace opting to choose a blade at random in the corner of the room furthest away from his parabatai. 

His hand was shaking as he reached out to grasp it– _so tightly were his mental walls clamped down_ – and the prospective danger that he was putting himself in wasn’t lost on him. How could he expect to fight demons when he was locked in a war with _himself_?

 _“Jace.”_ Isabelle had wound her whip around her wrist and had come to stand beside him, her painted fingers resting lightly on her forearm. “I wanted you to come so we could all be together, just like old times. But if you’re not feeling well…”

It was clear that their sister had not connected the dots between their strange behavior and the actual truth of the matter. Isabelle had probably come to the conclusion that they’d gotten into another of their arguments, easily patched by talking things out, but Jace could see in her dark eyes that she could see him unraveling, so obvious was his distress to the people who knew him best.

He forced a smile, patting her hand briefly before pulling away. “It’s okay,” he said. “I didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all.” 

He tucked a blade into his boot and another in the holster at his waist, trying to steady the erratic beating of his heart. Alec was behind him and Jace didn’t dare meet his eyes a second time, choosing instead to make for the briefing room as his team finished their preparations.

The information on the screen told Jace everything he needed to know, the pads of his fingers flicking across the monitor as he scrolled to the end of the brief. The investigation was of a rogue warlock suspected of summoning demons and unleashing them on hapless humans, and while it did possess some element of danger to it, Jace suspected it had more to do with the Clave’s biases more than any actual transgressions. Always quick to suspect Downworlders of breaking their laws, most of their ‘investigations’ into the affairs of warlocks turned out to be wholly unfounded.

He hung back to give Isabelle and Alec room to check the brief, trying not to stare too hard at the back of his parabatai’s head and failing utterly. The longer he spent in Alec’s presence, the harder it was to maintain the distance he’d so carefully put between them. Whatever Valentine had unlocked between them aboard the ship was _powerful_ – similar to their battle bond but far more _intense_ , and keeping himself closed off felt like putting a _tourniquet_ on a healthy limb. Sooner or later, the band was going to _snap_.

Jace gritted his teeth; it was going to be a long night.

* * *

Seeing Jace was harder than Alec thought it would be. Not that he assumed it’d be easy ( it had never really been so, even before ), but the actual _longing_ , the draw that tugged at his very soul and pushed him towards his parabatai, that was completely **_NEW_**.

It took everything he had not to give in to it, his grip tight at the edge of the table that held his blades, knuckles white. _I can do this_ , Alec told himself, doubt flooding him even then as his eyes followed Jace across the room.

_Could he?_

Stubborn determination was what pushed him along, pushed _both_ of them, and it was the sentiment Alec focused on in order to finish fastening his blade around his waist. Focus being very much necessary as Jace had become not only a fixture into his peripheral vision but a _beacon_ his attention was inadvertently drawn towards.

If Jace had been golden before, he was the sun now, brightly burning and attracting Alec’s focus like a moth to a flame.

Distress came off of him in waves, and for once that wasn’t something Alec had an impression of as much as something he could actually _feel_ , try as he might to ignore it. Isabelle was the one that gave voice to his concern, however, and Alec saw the lie in his parabatai’s dismissal, would have even without the changes in their bond. In a way, it was almost comforting to know he wasn’t the only one struggling.

Being usually the ‘grumpy’ one came as advantage, for once, as his own sullen behavior didn’t stand out as harshly as Jace’s fidgeting, so Izzy had no words for him as the trio made their way into the briefing room. Alec allowed Jace to take the lead there, eager for some semblance of normalcy but finding none as his eyes felt as if burning a hole at the back of Jace’s neck, urging his parabatai to _look at him_.

Jace didn’t look back, and while being frustrated with him was hardly a novelty, Alec still found himself crossing his arms over his chest and frowning in concern.

The mission itself seemed simple enough, Izzy was clearly going easy on him, and by the time Alec was done reading the briefing he found himself pulling back, reaching for Jace almost without a thought. Long fingers curled over Jace’s bicep, clutching the leather of his jacket and sending an unexpected shiver up Alec’s arm. That was a _bad idea_.

 _“Are you really okay?”_ he still asked, his mouth feeling suddenly dry even as he forced the words out and his eyes searched Jace’s mismatched ones for _something_.

Alec had been worried, but, as he came in close contact with his parabatai in what felt like the first time in a small eternity, concern gave way to the overwhelming feeling of rightness brought on by that simple touch. He wanted to pull away, as if being this close burned and letting go was the only choice, but prying his fingers off and looking away took a conscious effort and it seemed like it took forever for him to let go completely, even if in reality not even a minute had transpired.

 _“Sorry,”_ Alec whispered, lowering his eyes and curling his fingers into his palm. His palm still felt warm and he clung to that particular sensation in order to focus.

_“We should get going.”_

 

* * *

_Are you really okay?_

If Jace had had any sense left in him, he would’ve moved away before Alec could make _contact_ , but the gesture was so familiar that for a moment he merely stood there, every guard he had _dropping_  at the simple touch.

 _He wasn’t okay_ , not by a long shot, and his breathing turned ragged when he felt the heat of his parabatai’s fingers through the leather of his jacket, his own hand coming up to curl around his wrist before he could stop himself. There was a strip of skin showing between Alec’s sleeve and his glove; Jace could feel it against his palm as if it _burned_ him, searing into his bones.

_It only made him hold on tighter._

“I–” _Miss you_ , he thought, but he managed to bite back the words. He had swayed into Alec’s space regardless– _as if a moth drawn to a flame_ – the hold on his wrist turning to what could only be described as a _caress_. His thumb had found the inside of his parabatai’s wrist, sweeping gentle circles against his _pulse point,_ warm skin on warm skin and _oh,_  Jace could _hear_ him, _could feel his heartbeat_ , and for a brief, blissful moment there was nothing and no one else, just _them_ –

_Sorry._

The hitch in his breathing was audible; the broken contact _jarring_. Jace blinked in confusion as Alec lowered his gaze, paling as he realized what had just happened. All around them the Institute bustled, no one the wiser for what had transpired in a handful of seconds.

 _Eternity in an hour_ , as an old poem had gone, and Jace knew what that meant now. “ _N-no,_ ” he stammered. “ _It was my fault. I shouldn’t have–_ ”

Isabelle had been studying the monitor and she turned now to look at them, raising an eyebrow at their proximity. “Made up already?” she asked, smirking. “ _Good._ ”

There was no forthcoming reply and what choice did they have but to _follow_ as she led the way to the portal room? Isabelle was a consummate professional and now that she deemed her brothers reconciled, she was thoroughly consumed with the task at hand.

It was rare for Jace not to take the lead on a mission but it had been some time since he’d partnered with the Lightwoods. He was out of their rhythm, _out of the loop_ , and perhaps this mission was the first step in repairing that, but Jace wasn’t sure if they should even be _trying to_.

His breath caught as he entered the portal, trying to banish the remnants of heat from his system, and when the purple light deposited him in the middle of a darkened alleyway, Jace sucked in lungfuls of the cold night air.

The warehouse that loomed before him was seemingly abandoned, with broken windows and detritus strewn across the ground. It smelled _wrong_  somehow, and instinct made Jace pull his blade, keep it in his hand and at the ready.

He advanced slowly as he watched Alec and Isabelle come through, and he nodded towards the door. “I’ll check the perimeter,” he said. “And go in through the back, if I can.”

* * *

Alec knew he had made a mistake even before, but the moment Jace touched him back he became _sure_ of it. That one simple point of contact, the flat of Jace’s palm against the inside of his wrist, was enough to set Alec’s skin ablaze, his nerves suddenly lit and irrevocably tuned to the connection.

The world around them faded under the gently swipe of Jace’s thumb over his pulse point, Alec’s heart stuttering so it could match the pace of it’s other half. His heartbeat didn’t race as they gravitated closer to each other, it simply fell in line with Jace’s own steady pulse, two hearts _beating as_ **one** before Alec could bring himself to pull away.

It was a conscious effort, letting go of Jace, and Alec realized he loathed parting from it because for the first time in a week, for a few seconds, he had felt finally at _home._

 _I miss you too,_ he caught himself thinking as Jace fumbled for his words, the act so unlike his parabatai it made Alec frown. The uncertainty might be _new_ , but the martyrdom certainly was not _–_

 _“Not your fault either,”_ he started, knowing it had to be said even as they were interrupted by Isabelle’s teasing comment. Only then did Alec realize exactly how _close_ they had come to standing, no more than a couple of inches between them that only became noticeable as Jace pulled away.

The reason for distance became clear as only a few minutes in each other’s presence was enough for them to be drawn close without even noticing, and that didn’t make Alec loathe the renewed separation. Jace followed Izzy out of the room and Alec was left barren for a moment, before caving it to the tug at his very heart that urged him to follow.

Alec was the last one to get to the portal, coming through it on Izzy’s heels, and he found Jace already with his seraph blade at hand and a feeling of unease that had him pulling his bow out in response. There was nothing to even aim at just yet, but his parabatai’s distress called to him to be alert and so he did.

Usually one to pay attention, Alec couldn’t have said he’d thoroughly read the briefing this time, but the information still surfaced now as he took one look at the seemingly abandoned warehouse. It doubled as the lair to a rogue warlock, according to their intel, and the mission regarding it was simple enough, at least in theory.

Go in, look for the evidence of demonic summonings, or lack thereof, and _deal with it_ , if there was anything to be dealt with. Isabelle wanted to start him off easy, this assignment had all signs pointing precisely to that, and yet Alec could shake off this creeping bad feeling that only became worse as Jace proposed that they separated.

 _“I think it’d be best if we all went in together,”_ he tried to point out, but Jace was already moving ahead and Alec had little choice but to swallow down his anxiety on the matter.

Left behind with Izzy he had no choice but to watch his sister’s back as she shrugged and stalked towards the main entrance, her silver whip sliding gracefully down the palm of her hand.

The rusty double door up front had been left ajar, just enough room for Isabelle to sneak inside as Alec took one last look to the corner Jace had disappeared through before following. He didn’t have the same luck as his sister, having to push the door in order to fit through and cringing as the old thing creaked and protested the move. Both of them froze just inside the warehouse, but the stale air remained the same, the whole place holding still, and their shoulders sagged simultaneously with relief.

One could say that was their first mistake.

There was no sign of the warlock in the main room, no sign of anyone really as they carefully walked through the first floor and swiped the place for any clues. It took them a while to find the real sign that something was wrong, however, as they had been trampling all over it in the dim light inside the building.

A pentagram, the likes of which Alec had only seen once in Magnus’ loft as they had set out to summon a greater demon, only this was much larger, enough to cover the whole main floor and the reason why they took so long to notice- Long enough that by the time they realized what they had been walking on it was too late to simply run.

Alec tensed as Isabelle uncovered it, recognizing what it meant and becoming even more alert in face of it. If it wasn’t for that he wouldn’t have even seen the dagger coming for him, as it was he barely managed to step away from it, an arrow flying towards the rail of a high balcony even as he felt the sting of a cut in his arm.

It was just a scratch, no where close to what would have actually happened if he hadn’t seen it coming, but a single drop of angelic blood into the ground was all it took for the pentagram to come alive beneath them with an eerie glow, just as it was intended. The whole setting had been a _trap_ , and they walked right into it, quite literally.

* * *

The ‘back’ turned out to be a broken window that Jace had to clear the rest of the way, using the flat of his seraph blade to dispose of the jagged edges of razor sharp glass. It looked clear enough from this vantage point, and his palms scraped against the dusty ledge as he vaulted through, boots landing soundlessly in a cloud of dust.

Inside, the warehouse smelled _wrong_ , and though most warlock-related missions turned out to be the Clave’s bias and nothing more, Jace had a sneaking suspicion that this wasn’t one of them.

His mouth was a thin line as he pressed onwards, keeping close to the decaying walls as he moved further inside. If the warlock under investigation had ever used this as a lair, there was no sign of it in this section; crates of rotting fabric were stacked high, fire damage coloring the wood. 

His head whipped around as he heard the skitter of claws in the background, the _image_ of his parabatai confirming that it was nothing more than an infestation of rats flitting across his mind. Alec had always watched his back, and even after two weeks of going on missions with Clary, Jace still wasn’t used to his absence. 

There was a breathless moment as he stood still, unmoving, sharp eyes picking out the rodent in the darkness before he relaxed enough to continue. Watching his own back was a necessity now, and Jace was nothing if not a _realist_.

By the time he located Alec and Isabelle, he was convinced that his paranoia had gotten the best of him. He’d made his way across the entire back section unmolested, and he was about to call out to the Lightwoods when he _felt_  Alec tense.

His mental walls were clamped tightly but the urgency was _palpable_ – Jace could _see_  his parabatai across the main room– their battle bond beating against his chest, as if it was a living thing scraping away at his rib cage and struggling to get out. 

 _Danger_. He could feel the cut in Alec’s arm bleeding– _could see/smell/taste it_ as if from a great distance– and that was all it took for instinct to kick in, animal and pure, and Jace was running across the crumbling cement even as the pentagram beneath his feet erupted into cracks of light.

“ _Jace!_ ” That was Isabelle’s voice raised in warning, and he barely managed to twist away as a horned demon appeared before him in a wisp of smoke, claws taking a swipe at where his head had been mere seconds ago.

He would’ve commented on how small the demon was in comparison to the sheer size of the summoning circle, but the words died in his throat as a dozen wisps of smoke appeared all around them, each one bringing forth a different demon. Some were familiar but others were far less so, and as Jace’s head whipped around to survey the menagerie of demons surrounding them, his eyes landed on his parabatai across the room.

 _Alec_. There was a moment between them– _desperate and electric_ – and then it was _over_ , the demon closest to Jace hauling off and slashing claws viciously at his chest. He barely had the chance to bring up his blade, _adamas_  singing as it clashed with the infernal creature, and all around him he could hear the other beasts coming out of their summoning stupor, honing in on the handful of nephilim so conveniently put within their _reach_.

The crack of Isabelle’s electrum whip rang out even as Jace parried and rolled, reaching out to Alec with everything he had– _mind and soul_ – gritting his teeth as the demon’s tail whipped out, catching him across the stomach and flinging him back like a ragdoll. He hit a stack of crumbling crates and rolled away, _winded_ , just as another demon pounced, gaping maw gnashing at air.

Jace shoved his blade through its gullet and twisted back just in time to avoid the first demon’s tail again, ichor and ash raining down as his first kill flailed and died. His seraph blade sparked as he attempted to drive it through the demon’s hide, but the carapace was solid and slippery, and a clawed limb swiped at his neck, pinning him by the throat on the dusty floor. 

The pressure against his chest was immense, the demon’s monstrous weight keeping him in place even as he could see its tail rearing up behind it, poison dripping from its tip as it poised to _strike_. Jace had no breath to call out for help, but he could feel Alec’s heartbeat alongside his own, casting out with his mind as he thought desperately: _the eyes!_

Alec’s arrows wouldn’t penetrate its hide anymore than the adamas would, but its eyes– he could see them from this distance, black as tar and purely malevolent– its eyes were as vulnerable as any other creature’s. A near impossible shot given how erratically the creature was moving, but as Jace shoved his blade up and out in a vain effort to deflect its poisoned tail– 

Abruptly, the pressure was off his chest.

Jace rolled clear as the beast collapsed, its body already crumbling into ash. There was no time to _look_ , and his feet were already taking him to where Alec and Isabelle stood, fighting off the demons coming at them from all sides.

_If he was going to die tonight, he’d do it by his family’s side._

* * *

_Jace_. It was Alec’s first thought as realization and alarm slammed at him all at once, his eyes lifting up to find his parabatai with an uncanny precision. Even in the darkness Alec didn’t have to search for Jace, he simply _knew_ where to find him, the invisible line that connected the two guiding his sight as he looked up in time to see the blond already rushing in their direction.

Worry twisted in his gut, the feeling translated into arrow nocked into position and aimed even before the wisp of smoke in front of Jace fully solidified itself into a demon. Alec shot the back off the bull-like creature twice as it took it’s first swipe at Jace, his eyes never quite leaving his parabatai’s even as the arrows proved themselves useless against the hard skinned demon.

Their battle bond came alive like this, just as it was meant to except somehow _stronger_ and Alec felt himself falling in sync with Jace, their breathing matched even as they stood a room’s length apart and his attention was riveted towards a ravener that charged right at him. Isabelle’s whip pulled the demon off it’s feet and Alec was quick to shot it down, his runned arrows taking effect this time.

After that it was mayhem, with a dozen demons coming to life all around them and barely no time to even breathe, let alone think. Alec usually would allow for his training to take over then, forgetting himself in order to become a hunter and nothing else. Two more demons fell to his arrows like that, ashes and ichor the only thing left of them, Izzy was fighting a small shax swarm and Alec turned intent on helping her when Jace called to him.

Later, if Alec were to think about it, he’d realize Jace hadn’t really said his name, or anything at all to that matter, but his attention was caught nonetheless as his parabatai was flung backwards. Pain sparked down Alec’s back as Jace fell and the archer had no choice but to ignore it, his focus poured into trying to take aim at the demon that charged towards Jace now while something inside his chest _constricted…_

He couldn’t breathe. Just like that, Alec couldn’t breathe. Something invisible was weighting down his chest, clutching at his throat– Somewhere in the distance Isabelle yelled his name and Alec had but a second to step away from a flying shax demon before lifting his bow again with a shaky breath.

 ** _The eyes_** , he thought suddenly, realizing what he had to do, and for a moment Alec closed his own in order to clear his head. When he opened them again he was on the ground, dodging a poisonous sting aimed straight at his face and watching a pair of pitch-black eyes soullessly staring down at him. From down there it was an easy shot, one Alec took effortlessly within the span of a single breath. Another blink and he was back to himself, standing in the spot he had never left and watching the bull-like demon fall off of Jace in the distance while still clutching at his empty bow.

Alec wasn’t sure what happened there, and there was no time to think about it as the remaining demons banded together into formation, mirroring the shadowhunters that finally stood together.

With Jace at his side Alec finally felt like something was _right_ , his bow exchanged for a blade as he scanned the enemies before them and devised his parabatai’s strategy from a single look. Let Isabelle take the big guy in the middle, clean the support on each side and join her once they were done, Alec could do that.

A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, the handle of his seraph blade twisting in his hand in a manner that was all Jace before he rushed forward, feeling his parabatai doing the same without needing to _see it_. They moved in perfect sync, which wasn’t a novelty on it’s own, but the way it happened… Alec could feel Jace beside him, sense his movements before they were even made as if he could hear his very thoughts–

 _Get down_ , he ordered without a single word, sliding his blade over the spot Jace’s head had occupied a mere second before and decapitating the demon that rose behind his parabatai in one fluid movement.

It was exhilarating, strong, and the most powerful Alec had ever felt. Their hearts didn’t beat _as_ one, not when the two of them moved like a single unity, no clear line marking the spot where Alexander ended and Jace began. They were one, one and the same, and Alec _liked it_ , reveled in it even as the last beastly demon came down with Izzy’s whip around it’s throat and their blades crossly cutting down it’s soft belly.

* * *

They were all covered in a fine layer of dust by the time it was over, the pentagram’s light fading as the last of the demons dissolved in ichor and ash. Jace could scarcely breathe without feeling the air fill his parabatai’s lungs, so in sync were they that he felt like one person.

“ _Alec._ ” _Can you feel that?_

What stretched between them was heady and tangible, the fierce joy that Alec felt so completely mirrored in Jace’s own heart. The weeks they’d spent apart was like living a half-life, like wandering around with a ghost limb that he could still feel, a muscle that tried to flex regardless of its amputation.

Jace took a ragged breath, his seraph blade falling from his ichor-stained fingers. _He couldn’t do it_. He’d tried his best, but he knew now that he _couldn’t_ , couldn’t keep away from Alec, couldn’t cut himself off from the only person he’d ever truly loved– _mind, body, soul_.

 _Parabatai_. It was the only word in his mind, paramount in his thoughts, flooding through the heat of their battle bond and compelling him to bridge the few steps between them. His arms wound around Alec’s neck and pulled him down to a bruising kiss, as fierce in this as he’d been when fighting by his side.

Every part of this felt _right_  and it didn’t matter what the Clave thought because Jace was finally _home_ , and he could feel the desperation in his core ebbing, the tension that had kept him so tightly coiled during the past weeks finally abating.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thought, unwilling to extricate himself from Alec but needing to say it anyway. _I’m so sorry. I should never have listened to them._

Dimly, he heard Isabelle gasp in the background, her electrum whip ceasing its hum as she coiled it about her wrist once more.

“ _Jace–_ ” There was a warning in her voice, her heels clicking as she stepped away from them. “I found the warlock.” The downworlder’s body was some distance away, having fallen to one of Alec’s arrows as he’d undoubtedly cowered behind his summoned demons.

Their sister’s gaze was not unsympathetic as Jace finally pulled away, having clearly pieced together what had happened between them aboard the Morning Star. “ _We need to bring the body back._ ”

He had the grace to look ashamed at her words, clearly uttered to snap them both back to the mission at hand. Jace took a breath, swallowing hard as he nodded. “I’ll take him,” he said. 

His eyes met Alec’s once more before the last vestiges of the battle bond finally faded away, leaving behind a more subdued but no less bright point of contact between them. The ache of it was gone, and Jace felt only peace as he moved away, stooping down to gather the body. 

The warlock was lighter than he looked, his bones akin to a bird’s, and as Jace followed Isabelle to the portal outside, he took a last look at the pentagram, scuffing his boot against the edge of the outer circle and breaking the seal.

* * *

_Can you feel that?_

_“Yes,”_ he breathed out, though the question hadn’t really been asked _out loud_  but instead echoed within his own thoughts. 

There was an ease to the way they did it now, Jace’s voice sounding like just another one of Alec’s thoughts, though the tone of it was _different_ , the signature and characteristic warmth of his parabatai somewhat imprinted into it. Back at the ship they had to almost yell at each other through the bond, to mean it and _force it;_  now, with the heat of battle still thrumming in their bodies and their connection strengthened, it felt as easy as breathing.  

And it wasn’t just that. Emotions mingled along with their voices, transmitted with even more ease than conscious thought. Alec not only knew what Jace wanted to tell him, he knew exactly how his parabatai was feeling. The exhilaration shared between them, the longing which he had never identified with no one but himself, the fact he would come to him even before he did it _–_

The clatter of Jace’s seraph blade into the ground fell into deaf ears, at least for Alec, his attention riveted to his parabatai’s approach so much that he moved as well, meeting Jace halfway. Alec didn’t even realized he was doing it until his arms were wrapped around the Jace’s waist and his face was leaning down into a fierce kiss. 

 _Yes, **this**_. 

It was everything Alec had been missing, everything he didn’t even know he needed as badly as he did, but clearly couldn’t be without, not anymore. Jace’s lips sent a spark down his body, the kiss bringing him to life, filling the void in his chest and making it even more obvious how wrong it had been for them to be apart. 

If Alec had needed Jace before, it was nothing close to how he felt about him now that his very breath was taken from his parabatai’s lungs. They melded together, body and soul, and there was no need to pull apart in order to communicate, no need to stop kissing as Jace apologized and Alec cut it short without missing a beat. 

 _It’s okay_ , he assured him, hands tightening at Jace’s sides. _Angel, you’re here now_ … 

A second more and he would have confessed his love like this, the feeling already projected and pulsing between the two of them as Isabelle cut in. Her voice seemed unnaturally loud against their haggard breathing, Alec’s look nothing but contrite as he pulled back and forced himself to let go. 

His sister’s look was disappointed, _worried_. He hadn’t told her, and of all people if anyone deserved to know it was Izzy, but Alec hadn’t told anyone, he never meant to _–_ He’d tell her once they got back, his apprehensive look tried to state, just not now. 

Chagrin colored his features, the sentiment reflected by Jace as they both recomposed themselves and his parabatai moved forward in order to retrieve the fallen body. 

Alec didn’t even know what the kiss meant at this point. Every time he allowed himself to hope, it amounted to nothing, but the same happened every time he did his best to forget. He couldn’t give up on Jace, couldn’t let go of him, and yet the whole power of this relationship ( if he could dare call it so ) rested in his parabatai’s hands.

 _What do you want from me?_ he wondered as he took up rear in their little group and followed the others towards the portal point that would get them back to the Institute.

Jace was already marching ahead, taking the dead warlock with him, but still Alec wished that he would answer him, tell him what to do. Not for the first time he found himself cursing at their parabatai bond, the very thing that kept him in this dreary state of inertia, unable to fully have Jace, incapable of living without him. 

Whatever Jace would have said, Alec knew he would do it.

 

* * *

_They needed to talk._

Jace knew it as well as Alec did, but time seemed to slow to a halt as they went through the motions of completing the mission, each checkpoint taking what seemed to be an excruciatingly long time. He felt hyper-aware of his parabatai at every moment, from the second they stepped through the portal back to the Institute to when they deposited the body at the morgue, wordlessly filling out paperwork so that Isabelle could get started on the forensics. 

There had been no clue as to why the warlock had done what he did, and Jace was obscenely grateful that they could leave Isabelle to her search for further clues, hovering near Alec’s elbow as he asked her to contact them if she found anything. Her dark eyes were knowing as she nodded, but she said nothing as Jace followed Alec out of her lab, taking him by the arm as soon as they were out in the deserted hall.

“ _We– we should talk,_ ” he said. “ _Shouldn’t we?_ ”

There were probably better places to do this but Jace found that he couldn’t wait a moment longer, the ache in his chest having _nothing_ to do with their bond for once. He was in _pain_ over him, he knew it now, could define it in a single word, distill it to a single emotion, and it was this that compelled him to speak because he could bear it no more.

Ever since they’d touched earlier, the bond had _quieted_ , at rest in his soul in a way that it hadn’t been during the entire time they’d been _apart_. His _heart_ , though–

_“I’m in love with you.”_

“I– I have been since the _ship_ ,” he said. “And I thought I could stay away like mother asked, keep us safe from everything that this–” And he indicated the space between them. “Could bring down on our heads. _But I can’t_. I’m not strong enough, and I don’t want to be apart from you.”

He hung his head, his heart pounding in _shame_  over his weakness. He’d tried so hard to be strong for Alec, to be strong for their _family_ , but the secret was threatening to choke him, too big and too heavy to bear alone.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I never wanted to put this on you. Everything that happened on the ship was my fault and I ruined it, I ruined _us_ , and I want to go back to the way things were so badly _but I can’t_ , I can’t fight next to you and be that close to you and not _be_  with you, not when every fiber of my being is telling me that you’re everything that I want.”

His voice broke. “ _Tell me what to do and I’ll do it_ ,” he said. “Because I can’t stop loving you anymore than I can stop breathing, Alec, and you have to know that I’m _yours– I bound myself to you by my own hand years ago, because I always knew that I would be nothing_ _without you, nothing without_ **US**.” He took a ragged breath, looking up at his parabatai with a maelstrom of emotion in his mismatched eyes. 

“ _I love you, Alec Lightwood. With everything that I am._ ”

* * *

They really had to talk, and even though Alec was sure the hallway outside the morgue was one of the worst places to do it, it was Jace’s chosen spot. His parabatai had never been good at being patient, and this was no exception, the difference this time was that his urgency bleed onto Alec, prompting him to stop and _listen_.

          _I’m in love with you._

He wasn’t expecting that, the shock of the declaration amplified by the fact Alec could not only see the longing and painful honesty in Jace’s eyes but _feel it_ as well.

 _You don’t love me_ , he wanted to say, _Not the way I love you…_ But the sentiment was as poignant as it was familiar. Alec knew that pain, he welcomed it like an old friend at this point– It had been his companion for over ten years. He never thought he would feel it coming from someone else, from _Jace_.

There was so much Alec wanted to say to his parabatai’s spiel. That nothing about this made him weak, that it wasn’t his fault… They did it together, all of it, and if anyone was to blame than it should be the one harboring this feelings for nearly half of his life, it should be _him_.

 _It won’t change anything between us if we don’t let it_ , Jace had said it himself back at the ship, so why was he letting it?

 _“Don’t do this,”_ Alec started, _Don’t be sorry_. But Jace wasn’t done yet and Alec let him talk as his hands were closed into fists, itching to reach for his parabatai and comfort him.

Just as Alec had done earlier within his thoughts, Jace was putting the decision in his hands along with all the added weight of his confession. Like this it wasn’t much of a decision at all, not when the very question was preceded by everything Alec had always wanted to hear wrapped in so much honesty he had no choice but to believe in it.

_You love me exactly the way I love you._

That was the moment Alec was suppose to tell Jace no. They couldn’t do this, it was dangerous, forbidden, everything wrong Alec could thing of bundled into one single transgression. _You have to let me go_ , he meant to tell him, but the heart hammering inside his chest opposed the idea with all it had, rejoicing still in having it’s love returned.

It took Alec three attempts to get any word out, and by the time he managed _‘we can’t’_ had morphed into the confession he had been holding back since he was thirteen years old and barely figuring out his own feelings—

 _“I love you too,”_ he started, the four words harder than anything Alec had ever said before and yet surprisingly eager to leave his mouth. After he started, it was like the floodgates had been ripped open and Alec couldn’t stop himself from continuing, a hand coming up to cradle the curve of Jace’s jaw.

 _“I’ve loved you since we’ve met, even before I knew who I was, you know that. You’re my best friend, my parabatai, **EVERYTHING–** Jace you’re everything to me.” _Alec’s touch had turned soft, the pad of his thumb caressing Jace’s cheek in wonder as he pulled himself close, inevitably drawn by the pull of his parabatai’s presence.

Their foreheads were touching, pressed as close together as Alec would dare, his voice growing so quiet he didn’t even realize he wasn’t speaking anymore but simply projecting his jumbled thoughts and emotions at Jace.

_What happened on the ship was messed up, but it was still us, still you and me, and even if you didn’t want it I was happy it was you, so happy… I wouldn’t have survived it with anyone else._

His breathing grew heavy between them, the Institute and everything else forgotten as they were enveloped in their own little bubble.

_I can’t tell you to stop, you know I can’t and I don’t want to. For once in my life don’t want to and I don’t care if it’s wrong or forbidden **–**_

_“Any way you’ll be mine, I’ll have you.”_

* * *

It was a small thing to tip his chin up, to bridge the scant space still separating them, and Jace did so without _hesitance_.

Alec’s words were in his thoughts, permeating his _soul_ , and there was nothing else that existed but the taste and scent and sense memory of _him_ , Jace’s fingers sliding up to grip at his nape, holding him as tenderly as his parabatai gripped his chin.

The physicality of the kiss seemed almost a by-product of their closeness, a manifestation of their almost-vows, the open hallway so distant a concern that it may as well have been non-existent.

Jace kissed Alec because he _wanted_ to, _needed to_ , because to be doing anything other than that in this moment was incomprehensible.

 _I’m yours_ , he thought, giddy with the weight of their confession. _There’s no part of me that doesn’t want you._

It was as if time had stood still, their minds so attuned it almost felt like they were one person. Jace could feel the fabric of Alec’s collar under his fingers as well as the stubble of his own cheek against his parabatai’s palm, his mind eschewing the logic that would have told him this was _impossible._ There was nothing they couldn’t do together, nothing they couldn’t _accomplish_ , and whether it was _battle_ or this new landscape that they were now falling into, Jace was certain they would weather any odds.

His mind was an outpouring of affection, of _love_ , words no longer forming fully before pure emotion was shared between them. _Alec understood_ , Jace was certain that he did, and there was nothing else, _no one else–_

_“Jace!”  
_

The hiss was at his ear, barely giving warning before sharp nails dug into the small of his back, gripping his leather jacket and hauling him off of his parabatai. Jace fell back with a startled yelp, their connection snapping like a rubber band pulled too taut.

Isabelle’s dark eyes filled his vision as she released her grip on him, coming round to step between them like a physical barrier. “ _Get a grip,_ ” she said. “You’re in the middle of the hallway!”

“ _What?”_ Jace protested, color rising in his cheeks. The hallway was deserted apart from them and perhaps it wasn’t the wisest place for this, but surely a brief, stolen kiss shouldn’t cause such ire. “ _I was just–_ ”

His gaze flickered to Alec in an attempt to ask for _assistance_ , but his words died in his throat as he finally got a good look at his handiwork. His parabatai was– _Well_. Alec looked like he’d just been shoved against a wall and thoroughly _debauched_ , if Jace was being honest, as his mouth was red and swollen and his shirt was ripped at the collar. _Had he really done that?_ Now that his thoughts were beginning to coalesce, he got a vague recollection of tugging at the fabric until it tore, annoyed that all the clothing was getting in the way of his _mouth_.

Speaking of which– Jace’s eyes flashed downwards, flushing at the discovery that the top button of Alec’s jeans had indeed been undone. ( _A flick of the wrist and Jace had shoved his leg between Alec’s thighs, his breathing coming in short and fast–_ )

Isabelle cleared her throat, and Jace had the grace to look _ashamed_.

“ _Right,”_ he said, visibly shaking himself. _“I suppose we were just leaving._ ”

* * *

Jace kissed him then, and Alec couldn’t even claim to be surprised when the intention had been more than simply telegraphed _– He knew it would happen before his parabatai even moved._ The same way Jace must have known Alec would kiss him back, there wasn’t a world in which he wouldn’t.

Addled by the weight of their confession the kiss had a whole new meaning to it, a _**PROMISE**_ whispered into the slant of their lips, mirrored by their pulsing thoughts: _I won’t give up on you_ , Alec reckoned fiercely, his free hand finding purchase on Jace’s waist and keeping his parabatai close, pulling him closer if that was even possible.

 _Not this time, not ever again_ …

Jace _loved him_ , and the knowledge and feeling of it filled his chest as well as his mind, a bursting warmth accompanied by a wave of affection that drowned out anything and everything else.

There was only them, only this, the rough pull of Jace’s hand, his biting kisses leaving a trail of bruises down the column of Alec’s neck. His shirt was ripped under the strain of his parabatai’s want and all Alec could feel was relief, _satisfaction_ as the tear allowed for Jace’s lips to venture further, kisses tracing the sharp edge of his collarbone as Jace pulled him in and _pushed_ for **MORE**.

Alec’s back hit the wall with a muffled thud and all the inevitability of their attraction. _I’m yours_ , Jace projected as he pushed in between legs, a raised thigh and the right amount of pressure wrenching a moan from Alec. _I’m yours_ , he echoed, an old truth that got a whole nem meaning as they pressed close in a dim hallway.

Under the haze of their connection everything else faded into white noise, dim when compared to the intensity of the feelings they fed one another in a maddening loop. Alec didn’t realize they were no longer alone until Isabelle was standing right there, pulling Jace back and away from him, leaving both of them standing breathless.

 _“Shit,”_ he cursed, chest heaving for air and the will to force himself to move.

He didn’t, still leaning against the wall and feeling about as messy as he must have looked as Jace’s eyes raked over his body. Alec flushed under the scrutiny, unaware of the effect it had on his disheveled expression. Red lips, tousled hair, clothes askew and the evidence of exactly how much he had been enjoying himself…

Ten minutes ago Alec wouldn’t have been able to say if Jace would ever want him like this, now he more than knew he did. He felt it, the ghost of the emotions they’ve shared still lingering in the static filled air as Alec finally, _finally_ pulled himself away from the hallway wall.

 _What was he thinking?_ Right in the middle of the Institute, in a place anyone could have seen them _– Outside the damn morgue!_

Alec felt like he was losing it, like he couldn’t think straight whenever Jace was concerned ( all ridiculous puns aside ), and the spark of heat that traveled up his arm as his parabatai reached for his wrist only confirmed his suspicions.

 _I suppose we were just leaving,_ the blonde said, and Alec could do was nod, an apologetic look thrown in his sister’s direction as he followed his parabatai towards the sleeping quarters. Supportive or not, it was more of them Izzy probably ever wished to see, and though all else seemed to be clouded within his head by Jace’s touch and the warm feel of his soul, one thing was sure:

_“We owe her.”_


	4. Agape

Alec’s wrist was _warm_ in his grip, Jace’s thumb unconsciously straying to his pulse point as they made their way through the institute. Forced nonchalance aside, they made an unusual sight, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to _let go_ , finding that he needed the physical connection despite the scene they’d just made.

It was fortunate that the other shadowhunters they passed on the way to the residential wing were otherwise absorbed in other matters, his heart pounding with every step they took. Their mental connection was mild, but the heat between them was _steady_ , blossoming from the single point of contact, radiating from the pads of his fingers and up to his arm.

By the time they turned the corner to where their quarters lay, he could feel Alec in his mind once more, a steady presence that he readily opened himself up to, exposing himself to it as one might bask in the sun. 

“ _Alec, do you want to–?_ ” Given how Izzy had had to literally pry them apart just a few moments earlier, it seemed foolish to even _ask_ at this point, but Jace did anyway, inexplicably _nervous_  in spite of himself. 

He was reminded again of their tryst aboard the Morning Star, of the exact moment that he’d realized that this thing between them was _real_ – as if every casual encounter he’d had before he’d touched Alec meant nothing at all– and his heart ached in a way that he never thought could be described as _pleasant_.

His fingers tightened on his parabatai’s wrist, and this time he didn’t even bother to hide the fact that he was taking his pulse, counting his heartbeats as they sounded in perfect sync to his own. 

“ _Do you want to come inside?_ ” he asked, and his other hand was poised on the door to his room, turning the handle and leaving it slightly ajar. Without meaning to, he switched to their mental connection, his gaze unbroken as he looked up at his parabatai. 

_If we’re moving too fast, just tell me,_  he thought at him.  _What happened on the ship–_  He set his jaw as he tried to push the worst memories away, trying to retain only the _good_ that came of it–  _We can do this however you want, whatever you’re comfortable with._

It would be foolish to think that the distance that Jace had tried to enforce at their mother’s behest had had no bearing on what had happened outside the morgue, and now that the immediate urgency had passed, he wanted Alec to be _sure_. 

He wanted to do this _right_.

_Tell me to wait, and I will,_  he thought.  _Without question, without complaint. I love you, parabatai. Always._

* * *

Most of the haze dissipated after Isabelle’s intervention, Jace’s sure grip simply guiding Alec as they drifted through the Institute whereas moments ago it all but anchored him into the present. He finally could _think_  by himself again and doing so brought on the realization of exactly how careless they had been in their tryst, making out in the middle of a hallway like a pair of reckless teens. _Kissing_ , he and Jace…

However mortifying the thought still kept a hint of a smile on Alec’s lips all the way to the dorms, an expression that by no means suited the sudden burst of nervousness he felt coming from Jace. 

_Do you want to–_  his parabatai trailed off, the point where they stood in front of Jace’s bedroom filling up the blanks his voice would not at first. Going inside would mean picking up where they had left off, the memory of their shared kiss causing a rise to Alec’s pulse that reverberated under the pads of Jace’s fingers. 

_Do you want to come inside?_ He did, Angel he _did–_ but the question came accompanied by a slew of memories that explained why Jace had been asking to begin with.

Thinking about the Morning Star alone was enough for his pulse to spike all over again ( and for a very different reason at that ), but on the outside Alec kept it under control.

It had been his first time, their tryst aboard the ship, and though he deeply regretted the circumstances of it, Alec didn’t regret that it _happened_ , couldn’t bring himself to regret that it had been Jace after all. The conclusion he’d reached then remained steady: Jace had already owned Alec’s heart and soul, his body was but the final installment of it and in other circumstances he would have given it to his parabatai freely. 

Even with their hands forced, he didn’t regret doing it.

_Tell me to wait, and I will._

Alec huffed at the notion, his hand turning in Jace’s grip in order to grasp his parabatai’s arm properly, the hold keeping as he pushed the door open and lead Jace inside. _This is not the place_ , he thought pointedly, having had enough of standing in hallways for the day. 

Inside Jace’s bedroom the air felt somewhat heavier, the atmosphere of it ominous enough that Alec felt as if his voice echoed as he spoke. 

_“I love you too,”_ he admitted, the words become easier to say a second time around and the confession accompanied by a hand that cradled the curve of Jace’s jaw. _“But I’ve already waited ten years–”_

The rest of his words were lost into a kiss initiated by Alec himself, the push of it so physical it had Jace’s back hitting the door they had barely closed in their rush to get inside. It definitely closed now, under the combined weight of their bodies, and whatever Alec wanted to say was translated into a rush of thoughts and feelings, projected through their bond as he tasted Jace’s lips. 

_I love you_ , it said, _I’ve always loved you with everything_ … Everything that he was, everything that he had _– It’s yours, it’s always been yours._ But underneath that there was _more_ , the spark of fire that ignited Alec, that tightened his fists in Jace’s jacket and made him move in a way he simply couldn’t have at the ship, pushing into his parabatai’s space and pressing their bodies close as he ran his teeth at Jace’s bottom lip. 

Alec had always loved Jace, and their time together at the ship had been a way to give himself to him that he’d never thought he’d experience. Now, however, with Jace’s words still echoing in his thoughts and the ghost sense of his burning feelings for him; now, for the first time, Alec felt like he could _have_ him as well. 

* * *

Whatever trepidation Jace felt on Alec’s behalf disappeared when he felt his parabatai’s answer in his mind, the rush of love and anticipation so mingled with his own that it brooked no further argument.

He would’ve answered had Alec given him space to, letting out a startled laugh at the other’s enthusiasm in maneuvering them both into his room. The mirth soon morphed into something else entirely as Jace was all but shoved against his own door, however, the impact closing it with a final _thud_.

A moan issued from his lips as Alec nipped at his mouth, his large hands moving over his jaw, his clothing– clearly, his parabatai had been holding out on him, and was no longer keen on doing so.

_You can have me_ , Jace thought at him, assuring him as much as he was uttering the promise, arching his back as he shrugged out of the constricting material of his gear. His jacket dropped to the floor in a small cloud of ash, groping for his parabatai’s waist as he tugged Alec’s shirt up, splaying his fingers against the sculpted planes of his stomach.

A lifetime of training had made him hard to the touch, with Jace’s breath catching as his fingers splayed against the rune he’d drawn at Alec’s waist, pressing against the symbol of their eternity. 

He softened then, his previous shared urgency turning into something _else_ , _slower_ , more deliberate, and he broke away from Alec’s mouth so he could look at him, his eyes so dark they were almost _black_.

_Angel, he wanted him_. More than anything he’d ever wanted in his entire life, his breath ragged as he tried to catch his breath, the core of him so _warm_ that he thought he might burn up from it. His hands slid up, higher along Alec’s torso until he had pushed the fabric of his shirt up and _off_ , dropping the garment to the floor as they stood in the darkened room.

Jace didn’t want to let go of him so he _didn’t_ , sliding his hands up to Alec’s nape and tugging him into another bruising kiss, urging him backwards in a strange sort of walk that should have been awkward but somehow managed to be anything _but_.

“ _Bed,_ ” Jace said, both in warning and request, stopping just before the backs of Alec’s knees hit the edge of it. He bit his lip as he pressed against his parabatai’s shoulders, urging him to _sit_ before he followed him down, straddling him in a single, graceful movement. 

The height difference had always been something of an annoyance to Jace in their youth, but he found that he hardly minded it now, not when it allowed him to press close and claim his mouth again, every point of contact between them burning so brightly that he could barely _breathe._

* * *

_You can have me_ , Jace all but said, and Alec suited the vow to deed, hands aiding in removing his parabatai’s jacket, his own black shirt soon joining the growing pile at their feet. This time he felt no shame in stripping, already dark eyes following Jace’s tentative trail down his chest and only darkening further at the sight of stark appreciation in those mismatched eyes. 

A thrill traveled up Alec’s spine, pure and unadulterated lust. His? _Jace’s?_ At this point it was hard to say, their feelings so tangled up together Alec could no longer tell where his own want ended and Jace’s began. All he was certain of was the simple truth:  _I want you as much as you want me._

The thought was heated, the sentiment behind it pressed into the slant of their lips as they met once more in a passionate kiss, blindly stumbling further into the room with a clear destination in both their minds. 

When Jace urged him into his bed the gesture was soft but sure, and Alec couldn’t help but to be reminded of the last time –  _their first time –_  he had been in this position. Back at the ship he had been painfully stiff as Jace had pushed him down on the far-too-low mattress, but this time Alec was _relaxed_. Molten lava ran through his veins, hot and slow, and while Jace’s bed was familiar territory, there was nothing familiar about the weight of his parabatai settling over his tights, on Alec’s _lap_.

As a rule Alec didn’t really enjoy change, but this? Of this he only wanted _more_.

Touching Jace was new, thrilling, and Alec found out he enjoyed every second of it as his hands traveled up his parabatai’s back, slowly but surely, bringing the fabric of his shirt along with them. 

They were at the perfect height for kissing like this, mirroring protest leaving their lips as they were briefly forced apart so Alec could pull Jace’s t-shirt off. It lasted only a second, and then they were pressed close again, foreheads touching like they had before in the hallway, heated breath mingling between them as  Alec’s hands made their way back down, this time dragging over naked flesh. 

Jace’s skin was burning underneath his fingers and Alec couldn’t get enough of it, intent on setting every inch of his parabatai’s flesh ablaze with his touch alone, mapping Jace’s body in a way he never had before, worshiping every rune on that golden skin with his lips… 

There was so much he _wanted_ Alec groaned with the intensity of his own desire. His hands had finally settled on the sharp turn of Jace’s hips and the purchase of it was used to pull the blond even closer, down into his lap and into a grinding motion Alec would have never before thought himself bold enough to _dare–_ Perhaps he really wasn’t, but Jace definitely was, and within such close quarters it felt as if his parabatai’s courage leaked onto him, fueling him to finally take all of which Alec had always denied himself. 

His own hips pushed upwards into the motion, mouth falling to the curve of Jace’s shoulder and boldly licking at the rune that circled his collarbone, teeth dragging against the soft and damp skin until the bite was closed at the base of his neck. Hot and heavy, _marking_ , so that by the time Alec pulled away there was a purple bruise on Jace’s skin with the unmistakable shape of his kiss. 

_Mine_ , he thought at the sight, a sweet lustful satisfaction settling at the pit of his stomach along with it and tightening his grip around Jace’s hips. Outwardly his hazel eyes had become all but black with desire, shamelessly travelling down Jace’s chest and settling at the hem of his jeans, Alec’s lips suddenly dry at the sight of the bulge there and evidence of his parabatai’s arousal. 

_“You’re wearing too much.”_

* * *

Alec’s _mouth_ was like a drug, the hot slide of his lips and the barest hint of _teeth_ making a shudder go down Jace’s spine. His shirt was dragged off with little fanfare– a soft sound of protest issuing forth when they were forced to part for a handful of seconds– and Jace was forced to take the break for what it _was_.

His heart was _racing_ , his forehead resting lightly against Alec’s as they shared breath, his mouth tingling with the urge to bridge the space between them. But his parabatai was _touching_ him now, his sure hands moving over bare skin as if he was desperate to map every inch of him, _know_  every part of him, and Jace didn’t dare move, unwilling to break the _spell_.

He wanted Alec to have this, could feel how much he wanted him (had _always_ wanted him), as seduced by the heavy thoughts that were filling Alec’s mind as he was by the hands that splayed across his skin, finding purchase against his hips and pulling him _hard_  against the other’s lap.

_Fuck_. Jace wasn’t sure if he’d said the word aloud, but someone was _moaning_ and it didn’t sound like Alec’s voice _at all_. His arms had come up to his parabatai’s broad shoulders in the parody of an embrace, too weak and too tense at the same time, _graceless_ as he deliberately turned his jaw to the side. Stubble scraped across the sensitive skin of his neck as Alec marked him, biting and _sucking_  hard enough to _bruise,_ fingers burning a brand into the indents of his hips.

Jace was grinding against him in earnest now, heat coming off of him in waves as he felt Alec’s _thoughts_ – just a word, a single thing, over and over– and his acquiescence was as pure as it was _instinctive_. _I’m yours._

Alec drew back just enough for Jace to get a look at him, eyes hooded and dark in the dim light, his hand dropping to his waist;  _‘you’re wearing too much’_.

A red flush crept across his face, painting Jace’s golden skin as he _froze_  for a split-second, hit by a wave of _arousal_ so strong it nearly left him _breathless_. He wasn’t sure if it was coming from his parabatai or himself, and at that point it didn’t even _matter._  All Jace could think about was how Alec’s body felt underneath his fingers, the scent of him and the heat of his body permeating all of his _senses_. 

They were in a fog, lost in the mists, holding onto each other for dear life and Jace wouldn’t have it any other _way_. He felt almost clumsy as he moved against Alec once more, pressing a brief kiss against his mouth before drawing back completely. 

They weren’t new lovers and yet in many ways it did feel like it somehow, with Jace feeling Alec’s gaze on him as he undressed before him completely, shedding the remainder of his clothing as he stood before him. 

It felt like it had been on the ship except so much _more,_ the weight of their choice wrapping them both in _warmth_. Everything about this felt _right_ , and Jace was stepping between the V of Alec’s legs, reaching down to tip his chin up even as he bent down, capturing his mouth in a heated kiss. It was slow and  _deliberate_ , the intensity building between them until Jace was panting for breath, one hand gripping his parabatai’s nape and the other working at the waist of his jeans. 

When his fingers finally slipped between Alec’s legs, he knew that the spike of _lust_  that shot through him wasn’t just his _own_ , and Jace pulled back from his mouth with a wet pop. 

His mismatched eyes were wide, _staring_  into his face as he dragged his fist down his parabatai’s hard length– once, _twice_ – and then Jace was getting on his knees for him, all but wrenching the rest of Alec’s clothing down to pool at his feet. He was painfully hard– _they both were_ – anticipation passing back and forth between them in a zing of static lust, the slight tremble in his fingers belying his desire. 

“ _Is this what you wanted?_ ” Jace asked, voice thick and dark. He waited for the inevitable  _affirmation_ , the tension building between them as his breath gusted between Alec’s legs, fingers splayed against his thighs as he bent forward, taking him into his _mouth._

* * *

Alec had seen Jace undressed before, Angel he had slept with him, but this was so much different from anything else it felt like the very first time and he was nothing but aghast as his parabatai stripped before him. 

For the first time Alec allowed himself to watch, his eyes hungry and struggling to take it all in as they raked over the planes of Jace’s chest, down the expanse of his thighs and, inexorably, drawn to the apex of his pleasure, realizing him to be just as eager for this as Alec felt himself, just as excited. His attention remained there, enraptured by the sight and assaulted by the wave of sheer unadulterated lust it brought on up until the moment Jace walked back to him, the heat of his naked body more distracting than any sight. 

Alec was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, his lips parting for a kiss even before Jace was fully there to take them. Like the moon Alec orbited his parabatai then, moving into his touch, melting beneath it and all but moaning as Jace’s sure fingers met his own heated skin. 

One stroke, two, and Alec’s thoughts were a litany of _yes_ , _**YES**_ , to the same rhythm of Jace’s fist, hips arching off the bed and into that perfect grip. Alec wanted more of it, wanted it to never stop and wanted so much more his mind ran wild with it, but Jace pulled back and everything _stopped_.  

It wasn’t what he had in mind before, not quite in this setup at least, but now that it was there – Jace getting down on his knees between his legs cutting the most _breathtaking_ picture Alec had ever seen. Now he couldn’t think of _anything else_. 

_“Yes,”_ Alec admitted, not recognizing his own voice in the hoarse and lustful whisper that left his lips.  _  
_

_Was that really him?_ But Alec knew it was. For a moment he saw himself through the red haze of Jace’s eyes, just like he had done when they had been fighting earlier. He saw himself, sweaty and flushed, tense and so impossibly hungry for it as Jace moved to take him into his mouth. 

It was nothing Alec had ever felt before, nothing even his wildest imagination could have done justice even if he had tried. Jace’s heat was all around him, all over him, and Alec found himself split into both places at once, sitting in his bed and looking down at Jace’s bobbing head, and on his knees, impossibly hard as he bid his own lips to slide an inch further. 

Madness, that’s what it felt like, _and of the very best kind at that_.

Jace might have been inexperienced at this, but Alec was even more so, and anyway it _didn’t matter_. It was Jace, and that was all it took to make it the best erotic experience Alec had ever had, his pleasure reflected in the moans that escaped his lips, in the shudders that cursed through his body at the velvet soft touch of Jace’s tongue, in the surge that had him moving his hand from a white knuckled hold on the edge of the mattress to the long strands of Jace’s hair.

His grip wasn’t tight, but it was undoubtedly there, pushing Jace’s bangs away from his eyes and moving with him as he continued to go down on his parabatai with unbridled enthusiasm and _holding_ , only when it felt just right. And _Angel_ it did feel so, everything about it setting Alec’s body ablaze with heavenly fire. 

_“Jace,”_ the name escaped him like a prayer, urging his parabatai to look up at him, to keep going, to _stop_ before Alec couldn’t take it anymore and came into his mouth. 

Thinking about it then he realized he kinda wanted to, to melt into Jace and then do the same for him, to swallow and taste him and get him fall apart like Alec was falling apart now. His chest heaved as his breath quickened, heat pooling up in his lower stomach all but ready to explode if Jace didn’t stop right then _–_

There was no warning, at least not out loud, but Alec imagined Jace knew what was about to happen as his grip tightened on the blond’s hair, a gasp escaping his lips as he shuddered through an orgasm, so good Alec felt like he was choking on it, swallowing it down in the same greedy way he swallowed air in order to breathe for the both of them.

* * *

The moment should have been awkward but in truth it was anything _but_ , Jace’s inexperience so eagerly accepted by his parabatai that relearning each other’s bodies in this fashion felt far more natural than sex with any historied partner could ever be.

He could feel Alec’s fingers running through his hair, keeping him in place when he wanted it, guiding his ministrations in a way that was wholly _unashamed_. Jace had never seen his parabatai like this– so openly _desiring_ , so eager to take what he _wanted_ , so sure that he would freely give it. The thought was enough to give Jace pleasure in and of itself, but the fact that he could feel his parabatai’s arousal and contentment through their bond made it that much _better_.

He would’ve moaned if he could have, his hands sliding to the sensitive parts of Alec’s inner thighs, spreading his legs further even as he bobbed his head in the frantic rhythm that seemed to drive his parabatai crazy. He could feel the tension in his body, could feel that he was skating close to the _edge_ , and Jace redoubled his efforts, urging him without words to find his _completion_.

It was almost as if they were in battle, their breathing syncing down to the _second_ , and for a heart-stopping moment he could almost feel the pleasure coursing through his own body when Alec _came_ , his stomach clenching even as he felt bitter seed flooding across his tongue.

The sensation was startling but not unpleasant, cheeks flushing hotly as he gamely swallowed him down. Jace had never done anything of the sort before but he had certainly been on the receiving end many times, and he was eager to share the experience with his parabatai, wanting nothing more than to see him undone. 

Jace let him ride out the aftershocks before finally disengaging with a wet pop, his mouth swollen as he drew the back of his hand against it. He was painfully hard, slightly unnerved by the sensation of mentally sharing an orgasm that his body had no physical experience of, but no less desiring of what was to come.

_“Alec.”_ His voice was hoarse, thick with _want_ , and he stooped down to kiss him, letting himself taste his own pleasure on Jace’s tongue. His hands were heavy on his parabatai’s broad shoulders, moving restlessly to the back of his neck, caressing the nape of it. 

_Angel, he wanted him_. 

Jace urged him down on the bed and slipped between the V of his legs, biting at his lower lip as they pressed against each other. The scent of Alec’s skin was intoxicating, the air heavy with their arousal, and all Jace wanted to do was bury himself in his parabatai, to lose himself in his body, to be as joined with him on the physical plane as they were on the spiritual.

They were soulmates in every sense of the word, the pledge they’d made to each other binding them so absolutely that Jace was helpless in the face of it. 

“ _Parabatai,_ ” he whispered, and then they were kissing again– _hotly,_ desperately, his hips grinding down between Alec’s legs, pressing against the cleft of his ass as they slid together, fingers drifting to his parabatai rune and pressing down as if in _reminder._  

_Yes, this. Yes, we belong to each other._

He sucked another kiss against the side of Alec’s throat before finally pulling away, groping for the small tube he’d left on his night stand, almost fumbling it in his _haste_. 

It took no small amount of effort to pull away even further after that, to create space enough between their bodies so that Alec could _shift_ , and it was all Jace could do to _wait_ , eyes darkened so impossibly that they almost appeared black.

_“Alec,”_ he said, voice so low that he could barely even recognize it. 

_“Turn around.”_

* * *

Alec could _taste_ himself on Jace’s tongue. It was the first thing that came to mind as Jace slid up his body to kiss him, the bitter flavor assaulting his senses along with the meaning of it. This was his own release on his parabatai’s lips, the remains of what Jace had swallowed down almost hungrily in his haste to get to him, and already Alec was _hooked_.

He drank it down eagerly, sucked the taste from Jace’s tongue as he laid back into the bed and brought his parabatai along with him, bodies matching one another as perfectly as ever. 

Like the pieces of a puzzle, their jagged edges slotted together to make a whole in all ways but one, Jace’s length sliding between Alec’s legs in a suggestive thrusting motion that had his spent body shuddering with a fresh wave of arousal. This time he didn’t have to wonder what it would feel like to have his parabatai inside of him, he already **knew** , and _Angel, he wanted him_. 

Alec would have said so, _begged_ for it even, but whatever plea came to mind it was promptly lost in the heat of their kisses, swallowed by Jace’s lips and consumed into flames by his burning _touch_. Anyway, Alec didn’t have to say it, the way he held on to Jace more than enough to let his parabatai know, his unconsciously projected thoughts a litany of _yes_ and _more_ , _please, Jace_ , **please**.

It didn’t matter that he’d just come only a minute ago, not when they were so connected Jace’s ache felt like his own and the arousal flowing between them already had him hard and straining for more. Alec didn’t have a clue as for the rules of this new bond between them, but already he knew one thing: they’d either find their release together or no at all. 

Considering so Jace’s request came as no surprise, not when Alec could already feel it coming the moment his parabatai started to pull away, the want to see himself in that position something so foreign it couldn’t have come from Alec himself. 

He couldn’t say what his answer would have been in any other situation, but Alec knew he would have been embarrassed by the way he turned on his stomach and slowly rose to his _hands and knees_. As it was all he could do was breathe, feeling the weight of Jace’s look over his body and the wave of sheer **LUST** that accompanied it ( how could he be ashamed of something that prompted such _want_? ).

Fingers clenched at the sheets in anticipation, the simple click of a bottle cap nearly deafening in the otherwise quiet room. Alec’s head hung loosely between his stretched arms but it snapped up at the first touch of Jace’s fingers, straining to look back as a shiver ran down his spine only to fall back down as a hand to his lower back anchored him in place. 

Unlike the first time they’ve done this Alec knew what to expect now, anticipated it even, and though the hint of coldness did make him tense up it took no time at all for that tension to dissolve into heat and the exact give Jace needed in order to push a slick finger inside him. A finger that would soon turn into two, maybe three, how many Alec could take before he started begging for something more, and then it’d be Jace.

_“Jace…”_  

Alec couldn’t tell if he called the name in a sigh or a plea, barely realized he did it at all, his focus split between the sensation of his parabatai’s fingers loosening him up from the inside and the sight of his own body, skin glistening, back tense, slowly but surely rocking back into Jace’s touch.

_Was that what he looked like? **Beautiful**. _The thought didn’t belong to him, same as that vision, only the waves of pleasure he was unconsciously chasing with the same abandon that urged the very notion from Jace. What they were doing was forbidden and it bore the weight of a dozen broken laws, but Alec had never felt so _free_. Free to feel and take and just _want–_

He _wanted_ more than those fingers, more than just a tease when his parabatai was kneeling right there so hard with want Alec could _feel it_ , and, for once in his life, he didn’t shy away from _asking for it_  while at the same time giving Jace permission. _**Anything** , parabatai, remember?_

_“You don’t have to hold back now.”_

* * *

If their time aboard the Morning Star could be _rewritten_ , _this_ would be its form, the first time they were free to love each other because they _wanted_  to, because they _needed_  to, the press of their bodies against each other so purely wreathed in love that there was no room at all for _doubt_.

They moved together as if they were _one_ already, the sight of his parabatai so wanton and eager an almost impossible sight. There was no shame in either of them, and Jace’s breathing was ragged as he pressed kisses along Alec’s spine, moving his fingers inside of him even as the other man shuddered beneath. 

The stretch and burn of the intrusion was almost an _afterthought_ , and somehow it seemed perfectly logical that Jace could feel _that_ too, not even questioning the fact that he was so attuned to Alec’s emotions that adapting to his needs was _instinctual_.

There was only _pleasure_ between them now, pure and good and _right_ , his free hand splayed against Alec’s waist, wrapped around his hip just _so._ The parabatai rune was _searing_ against his fingers, and part of Jace felt as if they were on the precipice of something too big and too dangerous, but Alec made a noise beneath him and the thought was _lost_.

Alec was with him, _he was with him_ , and his back was rippling even as he pushed himself against Jace’s fingers, opening himself up even as Jace was preparing him, the guttural moan that accompanied the action coming from them _both_.

It was as if their entire world had distilled into this, the pulse of their heartbeats, and all Jace wanted was to _undo_ him, to make Alec feel even a fraction of what he felt, the fierce pleasure rippling through his body as he bent over him, biting into his shoulder as he finally, _finally_  pushed inside.

Perhaps the motion would have been _rough_ to anyone who saw them, but there was implicit _care_ there also, his actions serving to sate the fire burning in them both.

The slide into Alec’s body was _inexorable_ , a gasp falling from his lips as he sank into him, _joined with him_ , stopping only when he was fully seated inside of him, the curve of his parabatai’s backside pressing against his body. They were made for this, made for each other, their bodies perfectly curved as Jace fought to catch his breath, pressing heated kisses against the broken skin of Alec’s shoulder.

When he finally moved, they did so together, rocking against each other in counterpoint so they met at every thrust. Jace’s fingers dug into Alec’s hips as he pulled him back _hard_ , expelling the breath from his lungs as he _took_ him, hungry for more of the sounds that he’d coaxed from his lips mere moments ago.

_Do you feel that, parabatai?_ Jace thought, and it was so much like the time aboard the Morning Star except it wasn’t at all– their connection so complete and so full but not tinged with tragedy in the slightest. There was no part of Valentine that could touch them here, _nothing that would sully this_ , and Jace felt intoxicated at the scent of his skin, the salt of his _sweat_.

For a long moment the only sound in his room was their labored breathing, the bitten off gasps and moans as they _fucked_ , far more human and instinctive than they’d ever been in the past, and then Jace was dragging himself away from his parabatai, every muscle protesting the movement even as he did so.

“ _Alec_ ,” he breathed. “ _I want to see you._ ”

Jace grasped him by the hips and urged him onto his back, slipping back between the cradle of his spread legs as soon as their positions allowed. This time when he pushed inside of him, he could see _everything_ , the heady tangle of emotions chasing themselves on Alec’s features. He kept his eyes open as they rocked against each other, memorizing every facet, every second, the fire between them burning so hot that he imagined he could almost see blue flames licking against his parabatai’s skin.

Jace leaned down and caught his mouth with his own, kissing him deeply, almost _painful_ in its intensity as they so desperately moved against each other. He _wanted_ him–  _Angel, he wanted him_ – and he was _having_ him, taking everything that Alec was willing to give him and giving back everything he was in return, drunk on their union, drunk on _forever_.

_“Come for me, parabatai.”_

* * *

Alec could feel everything _–_  Everything that _mattered_ , from the sledgehammer beat of Jace’s heart against his back to the burn of his fingers where they rested over his parabatai rune. He felt the slide of his lover inside his body, the push of him against his soul and the sheer pleasure that coursed through Jace’s veins and his as well after each move.

The connection between them was a flaming and living thing igniting Alec’s senses and consuming everything around him until there was only this, only him, Jace and the undeniable feeling that they were _one_.

For all the times they had been together in battle none of it could really compare to this, the true sense of being one, _of sharing a soul_ , washing over them in waves that followed the rhythm of their coupling. It was the most carnal and mundane of things, having sex, and yet Alec was sure that he’d never been part of a more _holy_ experience. Right then, he was sure that such a thing couldn’t even exist.

Behind him Jace moved in earnest, taking him in a way Alec merely encouraged with his groans of pleasure and mirroring pushes. His arms strained and tensed in order to hold him up, hands eventually giving in as he fell to his elbows and raised the lower half of his body even higher. 

The shift allowed Jace to push deeper, determined as his parabatai was to carve himself a spot inside Alec that held the shape of him and no one else just as he had done to his soul. Beneath him Alec pressed his face into the covers, whimpering in pleasure and considering biting the sheets if only to keep any other sound in. 

Jace’s outright shudder as he moaned prevented him from containing himself. As a matter of fact, feeling his parabatai pulling away Alec positively keened at the loss of him, pushing his hands into the mattress and looking back at Jace not to ask him why ( he knew why ) but because the need to see him overwhelmed him just the same. 

Whatever breath Alec had left escaped him at the sight of Jace, golden skin glistening with sweat, hair sticking out over the action of his own hands. Wrecked, that’s what Jace looked like, wrecked and more beautiful than Alec ever remembered seeing him. 

Under his parabatai’s dark gaze Alec went easily into his back, legs spread open invitingly, almost teasing. Jace was quick to follow, fitting on top of him like he did in every other position, commanding all of Alec’s attention with his mere presence and the inexorable push of his body.

_I love you_ , he thought almost viciously, eager hands reaching for Jace’s shoulders and trailing flames over his skin as he pulled him closer and closer still, fire ignited and stoked by their kiss. 

_**I love you.**_

His lips might be taken into kiss after hungry kiss, but the sentiment was projected into the slant of their lips, into Alec’s every touch and push as he chased completion with unbridled abandon anchoring his hold on Jace’s back in order to push his hips as he needed to.  

Burning as they already were in each other’s presence it hardly felt like much of a change, but in that moment their runes glowed golden, heavenly fire ablaze between the parabatai pair as they consumed their love and Alec came with Jace’s name on his lips and nothing but love in his heart.  

* * *

_Bliss_. 

If ever there was a moment that felt more perfect than this, Jace didn’t know it, forcing his eyes open so he could _see_ Alec at the height of his passion, marveling at the way he so completely gave himself over to it. They were on _fire_ – visible to the naked eye and yet no harm came to either of them– and their coupling felt like a ritual, a solidification of the bond that they shared, freely given and accepted.

His own _release_ felt like the sweetest blood running through his veins, the intensity almost painful in the way that it _robbed_ him of his breath, his mouth pressed against the side of Alec’s jaw as he gasped, ‘ _parabatai’_ over and over again, spilling himself within the tight press of his lover’s body.

Jace didn’t know how long it went on for, only that he lay there for what seemed an eternity, cradled in his lover’s body as their hearts hammered a staccato rhythm, the sound of their ragged breathing filling his room.

Something had changed between them during their time at the ship, and this felt like they were fully committing to the _change_ , as if they were bonding themselves to each other all over again, one final step _completing_ what their parabatai ritual had started so long ago.

The fire between them had quenched but Jace’s body still felt immobile, sweat pooling in rivulets down the small of his back, the slickness between them bringing a small gasp to his lips when he tried to move. 

“ _That was…_ ” His voice was rough, barely above a rasp, and Jace licked his lips and tried again, trying to raise himself from where he was currently draped over Alec’s chest. “ _That was unexpected._ ”

Something of an _understatement_ but words were deserting him now, so loathe to extricate himself from their lover’s embrace that his chest ached at the mere thought of doing so.

It took another try before he was able to pull away completely, already missing Alec’s warmth as he rolled to his parabatai’s side, resting his head against his shoulder. 

Almost as if magnetized, his hand strayed to Alec’s waist, caressing the outlines of their rune with his thumb, pressing gently against the soft skin.

_Whither thou goest, I will go…_

_“I love you,”_  he said simply. There was nothing more real, nothing more _true_ , and in his heart of hearts, Jace knew that the loneliness he’d felt through most of his life, the loneliness that had been quenched by Alec’s long years of  _friendship_ , was now completely replaced by _love_.

Tears prickled at his eyes but didn’t fall, his breath hitching as he realized that he’d never felt so _happy_ , and he curled himself against Alec’s side tighter and knew that he would never let anything part them.

Jace was _home._

* * *

It was something inexplicable, the whiteness that took over Alec’s sight and the bliss that ran through his body something that he simply couldn’t put into words. _Unexpected_ felt like a poor fit, and yet all Alec did was chuckle breathlessly at Jace’s attempt.

_“That’s a bit of an understatement,”_ he pondered, laughter nearly morphing into the most undignified of whimpers as Jace pulled away from him. 

Alec managed to bit his lip in time, though Jace could probably still _feel_ his annoyance, enough that he didn’t take long at all to settle at Alec’s side, his thoughts urging his parabatai to come back, to stay close. _I’m not ready to let go of you yet_.

He imagined he never would be. Not now that he knew what this felt like, to love and be loved in return, making something out of it that burned so bright between them it felt like fire. Flames flickered at the tips of Jace’s fingers, spreading heat where they danced across his skin, making his parabatai rune pulse in response. 

The same sort of heat blossomed inside his chest, filling it with warmth. _Happiness_. His, Jace’s, it didn’t matter where the feeling had started, it belonged to the both of them now and they shared it equally, the same liquid gleam from Jace’s eyes reflected in Alec’s hazel ones.

_“I love you too,”_ he whispered back, the words no longer a confession but a reaffirmation of how both of them felt. 

_Whither thou goest, I will go,_ he echoed, not just the words but the sentiment behind them. They found something special, something magical, and Alec knew he would do whatever it took to _keep it_.

His arm was wrapped around Jace’s shoulders, not only to keep him close but fulfilling his _need_ to touch, fingers gently drifting over golden skin, marveling at the fact this was something he could do at all. _How can this be forbidden?_ Alec wondered, the fear he used to feel in regard to the law turning into questioning so quickly he wondered if this was Jace bleeding into him. 

But Alec knew it was all him, at least when it came to this. This was his love coming to fruition, his happiness at holding Jace within his arms; It was also his decision to do keep it, to fight for it– Fight for them.

They found love in the most improbable of ways, in the midst of hell, and now that they had it Alec figured it didn’t matter how they had gotten there, only that they did. His hold tightened on Jace, lips coming down to press a kiss to his parabatai’s temple that had all the feeling of a silent promise. It didn’t matter where they would end up from here, nothing did as long as they did it _together_.

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From tumblr: Thank you so much to everyone who stuck around with us on the wild, crazy ride that is Eros!verse! We hope you liked reading it as much as we liked writing it, and we are eternally grateful to everyone who took the time to leave comments, DMs, asks, reblogs, and/or likes. You were all part of the reason we stayed so excited about writing Eros, and we’re so happy to be part of such an amazing little community.
> 
> Big hugs to all of ya,   
> Bee & Andy <3


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